John Baron: What progress he has made in ascertaining the whereabouts ofMr. Tawanda Machingura, an illegal immigrant imprisoned for sexual assault of a mental health patient whilst working as a nurse in a local NHS hospital.

John Baron: I hear the Minister's response. This foul crime, committed two years ago, caused much concern locally, and all we wanted to know was the whereabouts of the dangerous individual after he was released. Despite writing to the then Home Secretary in April, asking written questions on 10 May, 17 May and 14 June and phoning the Home Office, I hit a wall of silence. It has taken the Minister being dragged to the Dispatch Box to get a simple answer to a simple question. Given the Prime Minister's promise of transparency on this issue, will the Minister explain why I received no responses to my named-day written questions? Does this case not show that the Government have failed to reassure the public on the foreign prisoners' crisis?

Kate Hoey: The Minister will be aware of the limbo in which many Zimbabwe asylum seekers live in this country. Zimbabwean asylum seekers will want to return some day to restore Zimbabwe to democracy. As our friends, why are we not treating them as we treated people from South Africa? Why are we not allowing them to work? Many of them are well qualified and, in meantime, they could contribute a huge amount to this country. Why arewe not allowing them to work in this country, to contribute to it and to prepare themselves to go back to a new Zimbabwe?

Liam Byrne: As the hon. Gentleman knows, some applications were the subject of extensive fraud. It was important and absolutely right that the Immigration and Nationality Directorate undertook extensive inquiries so that it might make the right decisions. If there are specific cases that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about, we will be happy to correspond with him further about them.

Joan Ryan: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. He will be aware that young people who reported drinking once a week or more committed a disproportionate volume of crime, accounting for 37 per cent. of all offences reported by individuals between the ages of10 and 17. I can give him some comfort, however, as the Violent Crime Reduction Bill, which is proceeding through the House of Lords, will introduce a new offence of persistent selling of alcohol to children, with offenders risking a £10,000 fine and suspension of their licence, or closure for up to 48 hours. The majority of 10 to 17-year-olds who have drunk alcohol in the past 12 months reported that they had obtained that alcohol from their parents, so there is a message both for the industry and for families.

Joan Ryan: My hon. Friend may be aware of the alcohol misuse enforcement campaigns—AMEC—of which there have been four, which have been very successful. They are aimed at shop owners who sell to under-age young people and do not ask for proof of identity. They also target those who are under age and purchase alcohol. Those measures are designed to deal with young people who purchase alcohol and others who purchase it knowingly on their behalf, and it is important that the measures and powers available to the police are used, because when they are used, they have some success. We know, for instance, that the number of young people who report using alcohol has dropped, inasmuch as the proportion of schoolchildren who have never had a drink is at its highest level—42 per cent. Clearly, there is much more to do in this regard, but the powers exist and we encourage their use both in the AMEC campaigns and outside those campaigns.

Karen Buck: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the perception that knife crime is a serious problem drives many young people to carry weapons where they might not otherwise do so? Although screening, stop and search and deterrent sentencing have an important role to play, prevention must lie at the heart of the response. In my constituency, which incidentally includesSt. George's school where Philip Lawrence was tragically murdered 10 years ago, we are currently seeking charitable funding for a major project that will work with schools and youth clubs to get to the root causes of why so many young people seek to carry weapons as a result of fear and as a way of resolving conflicts. Will he urgently work with the DFES to see whether ways can found to ensure that projects are available in a range of constituencies to work with young people to make prevention a priority?

John Reid: Yes, I certainly will do that. It is important that, along with other measures, we educate young people out of the idea, which is no doubt fashionable and attractive, that if someone carries a blade or a knife it will somehow defend them from attack. In fact, in many cases it will provoke, and may even be used against them. Education is an important aspect, as are prevention and prohibition. We are also considering banning Samurai swords and other weapons used in violent crime. Sanction is important as well, so I confirm to the House that in reviewing sentencing options, I am giving serious consideration to the suggestion that the maximum sentence for having a knife or a blade in a public place should be increased. We intend to make a decision on that before the Violent Crime Reduction Bill is debated on Report in the other place.

John Reid: The hon. Gentleman is asking me the same question—[Hon. Members: "Right hon."] I beg his pardon. The right hon. Gentleman is asking me the same question, through a slightly different prism, that he asked a fortnight ago—that is, how I could vote on something with the Government a few months ago.I think that he has served in government, and he will know that there was a different Secretary of State then.  [Interruption.] Just as I, as Secretary of State for Defence, made different judgments from those that the current incumbent will make on some matters—the nature of Cabinet Government is collective responsibility—so I have now reached a new position.I have considered what has been said and, rather than being completely focused on the process whereby we reach decisions—which is a legitimate subject—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will also be interested in their substance. I am prepared to consider extending the sentence in one of the examples—indeed, I will go further and invite him to discuss the matter with me. I hope that that process will not upset him unduly.

Frank Cook: I am sure that my right hon. Friend knows of the statements that the Prime Minister has made in the Chamber on these issues—that adequate time be provided, that the opinions of the communities involved be takeninto full account and that all options will be considered, including the co-ordinated co-operationof neighbouring police forces.
	Will the Home Secretary give the Chamber an assurance that all those prime ministerial stipulations will be taken into account before any decisions are made?

Philip Hollobone: Given that our prisons are bursting at the seams and that one in 10 prisoners is a foreign national, should not the Home Office redouble its efforts to ensure that, during an early part of their sentence, as many as possible of the 8,000 foreign prisoners in our jails are returned to secure detention in their own countries?

Paul Rowen: What steps he is taking to improve the administration of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

Tony Blair: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	A Europe of 25, not 15, soon to become 27 and in time enlarged still further, needs a modern set of rules to function effectively. As regards this treaty, around15 states have ratified it, but of course there have been the no votes in France and Holland, and as a result others, including the UK, have not proceeded with ratification. The German Presidency in the first half of 2007 will therefore consult member states and present a report to the European Council. Decisions will then be taken by the end of 2008, but it was made crystal clear that, in line with the conclusions of the Council in June 2005, there can be no presumption as to the outcome of this discussion.
	The bulk of the conclusions of the Council, however, deal with the specific issues of most immediate concern to Europe's citizens. One of the key outcomes of a positive attitude towards Europe on the part of Britain was the election of President Barroso to the Commission. I therefore thoroughly welcome his commitment to the Council to transmit direct now to national Parliaments all new Commission proposals and consultation papers and to take due consideration of their views. That is an important boost to a long-held British concern over subsidiarity.
	In addition, on better regulation, the Commission has already announced the withdrawal of some 70 pieces of legislation. The European Council invited the Commission to report by early 2007 on further progress, and in particular asked the Commission to make proposals by that time on how to reduce administrative burdens on businesses by 25 per cent. That, again, is a central British objective, on which we built alliances with other partners.
	On the single market, the Council welcomed the agreement on the services directive; welcomed agreement on the competitiveness and innovation programme; and looked forward to the Commission's forthcoming review of the single market and proposals for completing it. The services directive, in particular, is expected to deliver some 600,000 jobs across the European Union and add around €31 billion to the EU economy. I pay tribute to the work of British MEPs—both from the party of European Socialists and the European People's party—in securing the compromise necessary to allow it to pass.
	The Council agreed a number of specific measures and initiatives to combat illegal immigration, designed to strengthen borders while improving co-operation with some of the main source countries of migrants and refugees. In particular, the Council agreed to implement regional protection pilot projects to protect refugees in their region of origin and, therefore, avoid the need for mass migration. We also agreed to intensify work on readmission agreements, so that across Europe failed asylum seekers can be more easily returned.
	On energy, another of the Hampton Court initiatives, we welcomed and agreed to take forward proposals for an external energy policy, developed jointly by Javier Solana, the EU's high representative, and the Commission. One of the priorities will be developing strategic partnerships with the main producer and transit countries, including a commitment to seek an agreement with Russia.
	The Council also agreed declarations on the western Balkans; Iran; Iraq; the middle east peace process; Africa; the Lebanon and Timor Leste.
	Finally, on climate change, the European Council committed itself to pursuing, in all the relevant multilateral organisations, an international goal consistent with the objective of a maximum global temperature increase on 2(o) C above pre-industrial levels.
	This was a European Council which focused on the practical policy-driven agenda that we have long advocated. It demonstrated yet again the benefits of positive engagement with Europe, and I commend the outcome to the House.

David Cameron: I thank the Prime Minister for his statement.
	We support action on climate change, so we back the commitment to a new Kyoto-style treaty.
	We support enlargement of the EU so we welcome the accession talks with Turkey. There are genuine concerns about Turkish recognition of Cyprus and how Turkey treats Cyprus at present. The summit conclusions refer to the EU's
	"capacity to absorb new members".
	Can the Prime Minister assure us that that is not a new obstacle to Turkish membership?
	Those of us who want the EU to be a force for co-operation, trade, stability and democracy on our continent should support further enlargement. Does the Prime Minister agree that that enlargement should eventually include all the western Balkans, Ukraine and, perhaps, even Belarus?
	We back deregulation and we shall want to see concrete results from what the Prime Minister told us today. We have long supported greater openness and transparency at EU Ministers meetings, so should we not all be relieved that the Foreign Secretary completely failed in her extraordinary attempt to block the opening up of EU meetings to public scrutiny? When it comes to building alliances to block transparency the score, apparently, was 24-nil.
	As well as opening up the EU's decision making, we should be reducing its costs. Does the Prime Minister support the growing campaign for the European Parliament to sit in just one place, rather than wasting hundreds of millions of euros moving between Brussels and Strasbourg?
	Let me deal with the two most contentious issues at the summit: criminal justice and the future of the constitution. On criminal justice, will the Prime Minister give a guarantee that Britain will not give up its veto in that vital area? Our criminal justice system may have been reduced to chaos by the Government but that is still not an argument for handing it over to the European Union.
	Three years ago, the then Minister for Europe—I am sorry to see that the current Minister for Europe has not even made it on to the Treasury Bench today—warned that ending the veto could
	"change fundamental principles of our legal system".
	Can the Prime Minister explain why the Government now apparently have an open mind on the issue?
	The European Commission has said that if we had no veto it would want to look at issues such as Belmarsh. The Prime Minister and I agree that ultimate responsibility for dealing with terrorism must lie with the British Government. Is that not an issue on which the Prime Minister should look to the long term, take a firm stand and not hand over responsibility for something that he will later regret? Abolishing the veto in those areas was a key part of the European constitution. Does the Prime Minister understand that reintroducing such changes without a referendum is completely unacceptable?
	Is it not clear, after two decisive referendum defeats, that the European constitution should be declared null and void? The Prime Minister repeatedly told us that the constitution was essential to make enlargement work, yet  Die Welt has said recently that
	"the last 12 months have shown that Europe can live without a constitution".
	Does the Prime Minister accept that his argument about the constitution is being disproved by events? Is not the real alternative an open and flexible Europe? May we have a clear answer from the Prime Minister about the issue?
	The Austrian Federal Chancellor, who chaired the discussion, said:
	"There is...agreement that the substance of the Constitutional Treaty is sound and should be retained."
	Does the Prime Minister agree with that? Or does he agree with the Labour party's representative on the constitutional convention, who is in her place, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart)? She said last week:
	"The first thing the Government needs to do is to state categorically that the Constitution is finished. Like the parrot: dead, deceased and no more".
	The Government are perhaps starting to look a bit like a Monty Python sketch so perhaps it is time to say: and now for something completely different. Instead of his usual pre-prepared rant, will the Prime Minister just answer two simple questions? They concern the key issues at the summit. Will he give up the veto on home affairs and is the constitution dead—yes or no?

Mike Gapes: What discussion took place about the need for EU action to assist the African Union and to contribute to peace and security in Darfur and Congo? Has any progress been made on the establishment of the battle groups in the European Union and an enhanced role for the EU on security and defence policy?

Tony Blair: No, for the reasons that we have given on many occasions. Let me explain. I understand entirely why the hon. Gentleman holds the position on Europe that he does, but the amendment that he tabled to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill—an amendment supported by those on the Conservative Front Bench—would mean, in effect, our leaving the European Union. [Hon. Members: "No."] Yes, it would, because it specifically sought to allow the provisions of the European Communities Act 1972—the Act of our membership—to be overruled. To the Conservatives I say that they have positions on such issues that they may want to keep within their own party, but they are central to the future of this country and we shall expose them at every turn.

Angela Watkinson: The Council of Europe, as distinct from the European Council, is a specialist forum that promotes human rights in its46 member countries, including Russia and Turkey. Belarus is currently suspended, because of its human rights record. Does the Prime Minister share my concern that the proposed fundamental rights agency in the European Union will duplicate the work of the Council of Europe, and will, indeed, threaten its very existence?

David Willetts: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The House is about to debate the very important Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill. May I ask your advice on an important point? The previous Secretary of State for Education and Skills promised us that
	"Ofsted will carry out an urgent survey of existing vetting practice in a sample of schools, and it will report to me in the spring."—[ Official Report, 19 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 969.]
	She later stated that this was
	"in order to inform policy development".—[ Official Report,1 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 24WS.]
	We understand that that the Ofsted report is currently being circulated to the press under embargo. It is entitled: "Safeguarding children: an evaluation of procedures for checking staff appointed by schools". Is not this House in a very difficult position if we are debating legislation regarding the safeguarding of children and registers of sex offenders but a crucial document commissioned by the previous Secretary of State, which is directly relevant to our proceedings, is already available to the honourable members of the press but is not available to this House so that we can draw on it as we debate the Bill? Do you have any advice, Mr. Speaker, about how we can ensure that our consideration of the Bill is properly informed by the report that Ministers commissioned specifically as background to it?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. I listened carefully to what he said, but I must say to him that the timing of the publication of the report and the arrangements for embargoed copies are matters for Ofsted, and not something upon which the Chair can rule. However, it may be helpful to bear in mind that today's proceedings are on the Bill's Second Reading. There will no doubt be ample opportunity to take account of this report during subsequent proceedings.

Beverley Hughes: I understand the hon. Gentleman's obvious concern. The IMPACT programme is fully operational across all forces, enabling police services to communicate with one another and find out whether a known individual in one force is known by another police service. However, its capacity in relation to the storage of soft information and intelligence will involve a phased development. It will not be fully operational in terms of its full capacity until 2010. However, the police national computer is now able to hold some of that soft information, including information on acquittals, cautions and reprimands. So the vetting and barring scheme that we are discussing today will be able to draw on that information from the police national computer and progressively use the IMPACT scheme, as its capacity expands. But that has to be done in a managed way.
	Following the Secretary of State's statement to the House on 19 January, we took immediate further steps to tighten the present vetting system in the run-up to the implementation of the Bill. Under regulations issued last month, Criminal Records Bureau checks have become mandatory for all newly appointed school employees. We intend to introduce further regulations to enter automatically on List 99 anyone who is convicted or cautioned for a sexual offence against a child or for a serious sexual offence against an adult. We have established a panel of independent experts, chaired by Sir Roger Singleton, to oversee the whole List 99 process. The Ofsted review of existing vetting practice in schools, which was announced on 19 January, will be published shortly. As I have said, we will respond immediately to its findings.

Andrew Turner: Will the Minister give us some advice on the position of children, particularly those over 16 but under 18, who commit sex offences against other children? The Bill rightly contains provisions for barring adults with a history of sex offending from being in contact with children. What is the position with children between16 and 18?

Joan Humble: My right hon. Friend has said that the Bill covers a far wider work force than is covered by current legislation. What measures will she take to ensure that people are aware of it? She referred to"an employer who knowingly employs a barred individual". An employer who is unaware of the Bill might unwittingly employ a barred individual. What publicity will my right hon. Friend give the proposals?

Margaret Moran: For employers, the safeguards required in such circumstances is a complex area. How will they be advised of the appropriate safeguards that will be necessary, and how will that be monitored?

Beverley Hughes: My hesitation arises from the fact that the form of words in the Bill in relation to pornography is different for children and adults. We have given a commitment to table amendments to reconcile the references on pornography for both children and adults, but I certainly expect that the offences that relate to pornography, whatever their eventual written formulation, will be part of this category.
	Paragraphs 3, 5, 8 and 10 of schedule 2 set out a discretionary route to barring for all other cases. Where the information suggests that a person's behaviour has harmed a child or vulnerable adult or that they pose a risk of harm to them in future, the IBB will gather all the necessary information to consider the case. The IBB is under a duty to provide the individual with all the information that it intends to rely on in making that barring decision and to give them the opportunity to make representations about why they should not be included on the barred list. The IBB will then consider carefully, using its expertise, whether the person should be barred.
	Paragraph 16 of schedule 2 will make provision for an individual to request a review of their inclusion on the list after a prescribed period of time. A review provides an opportunity to demonstrate that the individual no longer poses a risk to vulnerable groups and therefore that they should no longer be barred.
	Clause 4 provides for appeals to the Care Standards Tribunal on a finding of fact made by the IBB or on a point of law following a barring decision. I reiterate that the spirit of co-operation that marked the debate on that issue in the other place enabled the provision to be refined, so that the transparency of the scheme as a whole has been enhanced.
	In the critical role that the IBB and the CRB will play in keeping barring decisions updated—a fundamental change and improvement in the operation of the current systems—clauses 21 and 27 to 38 provide for the board to receive ongoing information from a wide range of sources. Not only will information come from the police, but the Bill will place duties on employers, on local authorities and on supervisory and regulatory bodies to provide information to the IBB in certain circumstances, as well as if and when the board requests it. The IBB will also exchange information with bodies such as the General Teaching Council and the General Medical Council.
	Of course, in one respect, although the Bill isthe culmination of long-term thinking on the strengthening of vetting and barring arrangements, it is also the beginning of the process of implementing the new scheme. We are working hard to finalise the design of the processes required by the scheme, drawing on the expertise of a large number of experts, as well as police and employer bodies and so on.
	I hope that, by outlining the provisions of the Bill, I have made it clear that the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults is a top priority for all hon. Members. That sentiment was shared in the other place, and I think that it will be in the House. Indeed, several key improvements to the Bill that have been announced but not yet made will be introduced in Committee. We are committed to make the necessary improvements to the current arrangements for vetting and barring and to respond effectively to recommendation 19 of the Bichard inquiry and to establish a scheme, as I think the Bill does, in which parents, carers and the public can have confidence.
	I stress, however, that any system is only as good as the people using it and that no Bill can take away from employers their ultimate responsibility for making safe appointments. We need to inculcate a safeguarding mindset and the understanding that the recruitment of people to work with children and vulnerable adults must be based on robust procedures, on meticulous practice and, in the end, on sound judgment at the point of recruitment.

Maria Miller: The hon. Lady has a great deal of experience in this area and makes a valuable contribution to our debate. I hope that she will serve on the Committee, because it is by teasing out such details that we will make the Bill better and work more practically.
	We can never completely protect children and vulnerable people from the possibility of abuse or attack. Our concern is that, in the preparation of the Bill, the Government have listed yet more processes and procedures, but have not made those that are in place work properly. The Bill fails to consider the basic practicalities of implementing an effective vetting system. I want to work with the Government to identify such problems and will try to address them by way of tabling amendments in Committee. We should ensure that the possible shortcomings in the Bill do not remain as such. I bring three specific matters to the attention of the House.
	The concept behind the Bill is that everyone who works with vulnerable groups or children should be monitored to prevent abuse, instead of merely waiting for problems to arise. One of the main aspects of the Bill is the establishment of the independent barring board. The Bill is complex, so I would welcome the clarification of the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda), about these matters. It appears that the key role of the IBB will be to hold barred lists for children and vulnerable adults and to hear appeals from people who feel that they should not be on those lists. More detail might be planned, but I have summarised the key provisions in the Bill. When the Minister replies to the debate, will he tell us who will be responsible for monitoring the people who put themselves forward to be monitored? Who will deal with the soft data that anyone in the country willbe able to send in as evidence of individuals' inappropriateness to work with vulnerable adults or children? Who will monitor the database and decide whether individuals should be considered for barring as a result of such soft data?
	There is little specific provision in the Bill on the monitoring role of the IBB, even though a strong case can be made that monitoring and barring are part of the same process and that, if the IBB is to be effective in its barring role, it must play an effective part in the monitoring process or, indeed, be responsible for that process. How the monitoring database will work is unclear. The IBB has a tremendous role to play in supporting safer employment practices in a broader fashion than is currently articulated in the Bill. Perhaps the Minister will share his thoughts on that.
	I hope that we will also hear more detail on how the IBB will reach its decisions. Nothing in the Bill specifies how the IBB will do that. Issuing a code of practice to ensure greater transparency was discussed in the other place, but there is nothing on the face of the Bill.
	Finally, the IBB's accountability to Parliament should be clarified. It will be an important body dealing with highly sensitive issues and I feel strongly that we should ensure that it is accountable to Parliament, not a Minister. There is an opportunity to broaden the IBB's role to make it work much more effectively in providing safer employment practices for people working with vulnerable groups.
	My second point has already been touched on. Concerns were expressed about overseas workers in the post-Bichard consultation, so it is surprising that they have not been picked up and fully addressed in the Bill. In February, my hon. Friend the Member for Havant wrote to the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills asking for assurances in respect of overseas workers in schools, but we have not yet received a reply. Is the DFES still considering its views on the issue? Earlier, the Minister for Children and Families said that she felt that further discussion would be beneficial.
	It is worth bringing the scale of the issue to the attention of the House to show that it is not a peripheral matter. Growing numbers of overseas workers work in the key sectors that deal with vulnerable groups and children. Almost one in five nurses and one in three medical practitioners come from overseas. Some 18 per cent. of social workers and 15 per cent. of care assistants, who work with some of our most vulnerable people in almost domestic settings, come from overseas. We are therefore talking about a large number of people, yet the Bill contains no provisions on how to deal with them. It is important that the matter is discussed further in Committee and is not put to one side.
	The majority of overseas workers who come to this country come from countries in Africa and Asia and from India, which do not necessarily have similar recording systems to ours for criminal activities, so it is difficult for us to access data from them. When the Bill was debated in the other place, Lord Adonis said that the matter could be covered through regulations, but that fails to grasp the issue. We need to make sure that employers know how to deal with overseas employees and that they understand that a different approach is needed. The Bill must provide a robust mechanism for dealing with that group of workers. My hon. Friends and I will table amendments that require specific activities on the part of employers who employ overseas workers—for example, pre- and post-appointment checks to ensure that any issues are properly covered. This is not a unique problem. There are other professional organisations that have to deal daily with professionals who are coming into the country to work. They have found processes to be able to deal with this and it is important that we do too.

Maria Miller: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which was raised earlier. It is important that we ensure that, however people come into employment, there is a robust process in place to scrutinise their background and appropriateness for the job for which they have applied.
	There is a third area in the Bill where we would benefit from further detail. In his report, Sir Michael Bichard said that effective vetting depended on information, much of which inevitably comes from the police. At present, the only provision in the Bill on data collection is that it can be outsourced by the independent barring board to the Criminal Records Bureau.
	Data is the IBB's lifeblood. It has been at the root of many of the concerns in the reports produced in recent years by Sir Michael Bichard, Chris Kelly and Ronnie Flanagan. To be effective, IBB data must be of the highest quality. Those who are monitored need to have confidence in the way in which the data are collected, stored and updated. The IBB needs to have a quality control role on data, which it does not have at present given the way in which the Bill is constructed.
	That is particularly important when we consider the scale of changes that are happening to data collection, particularly in respect of the police. Hon. Members will be aware that the CRB has been criticised widely in the press for wrongly categorising 3,000 people as criminals since it was set up two years ago. That is a concern and I know the CRB that has been working on it. Given the volume of applications that it works with, it is perhaps in some ways inevitable.
	In terms of the data that the IBB will be dealing with, who will be weeding soft data? Many of the advances in the Bill concern the fact that the IBB can accept soft data that is not necessarily connected with a conviction or caution. Yet there is little clarity in the Bill about how that data will be dealt with, especially when perhaps soft data that is received is not felt to be information required to be kept on a person's record.
	Who will monitor the reliability of the new PLX——police local cross-check——system, which is the police flagging system to which reference has been made? It is new and I have heard that it has questionable reliability at times.
	Finally, on data collection, there will be a new procedure for courts, rather than the police, to update criminal records. This is a big change. We all know that our courts systems are overloaded and that there is great time pressure. It will be important to ensure that, in giving a new responsibility to the courts, they can undertake the updates in a timely manner. Given all these changes, it is important that the IBB has a role in ensuring that the changes are appropriate and that they are introduced speedily. Ultimately, it must have confidence in the data with which it is dealing.

Joan Humble: I am pleased to participate in the debate and wholeheartedly support this excellent legislation.
	I recall a long and detailed debate in the Standing Committee that scrutinised the Care StandardsAct 2000. That landmark legislation introduced for the first time new inspection and registration procedures to safeguard the most vulnerable groups in our society. This Bill builds on the 2000 Act, and I am pleased that the Government have such a proud record in this area.
	I recognise the Government's significant moves to improve the Bill, which represents an important step forward in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, including people with learning disabilities, from abuse. I particularly welcome the change that will ensure that the independent barring board examines all information received about an individual and considers whether an individual should be included on each of the barred lists. I believe that the link between the two lists is crucial and that this will give all vulnerable groups a greater degree of protection from abuse. Katharine Jeary and Olive Stevenson at the Ann Craft Trust have carried out research backing that up, which shows that one in five people who sexually abused older people had also sexually abused children. Abuse is about power, not age.
	I feel reassured by the Minister's confirmation in the Lords debates that the Bill's use of the word "harm" includes harm by omission, which covers neglect or failure to act, and that the Government guidance issued to local authorities and other bodies will be explicit about acts of omission, as well as commission.
	Much of the coverage of this debate has focused on safeguarding children in schools. I will turn later to a particularly vulnerable group of young people, but I should like at this stage to focus on vulnerable adults—by whom I mean vulnerable adults in the usual social care sense as opposed to the much wider definition in the Bill, which would cover every Member of this House at one time or another.
	Charities such as Respond and Voice UK with helplines for people with learning disabilities who have been abused assure me that they receive calls every week from families, carers or people with learning disabilities who are worried about abuse. All too often, those concerns, whether they relate to sexual, financial or physical abuse, are about those who are employed to care for them. We must do our utmost to ensure that unsuitable people do not work with some of the most vulnerable groups in society, but we must also respect and protect everyone's independence and choice.
	It is vital to communicate the vetting and barring scheme that the Bill establishes. Further to my earlier intervention, I would be interested to hear what the Government have planned in that respect. I am thinking in particular of the many small independent residential care homes which have no big human resources department and limited knowledge of new laws. We must bear them in mind, as they will be under the same obligations as bigger companies. Of course, abuse of children and vulnerable adults can happen in any home, no matter what size it is.
	I welcome the Government's promise to issue guidance to carers of people who lack capacity, so that it is expected that they will check those people who provide services in the home. It will be useful for those carers to be able to say, "The Government expect me to do these checks", to someone coming into their home caring for a family member who lacks capacity. It will not be as awkward for them to have to make the checks because they will have been informed that that is what the Government expect of them.
	I remain concerned about the fact that all posts in day centres will not be covered by the bar, and about risk assessment. Employers must be able to prove that they have considered relevant risks and documented any action that they have taken to minimise them. There are excellent employers out there who will take every possible step to safeguard their clients from abuse, but there are also employers who are under pressure, short-staffed, and perhaps not quite as aware of the risks. The Commission for Social Care Inspection should be able to inspect employers on risk assessments that they carry out when they decide to appoint a banned person into a less hands-on post. Only last week, we read that the commission has released findings from its report, "Safe and Sound", revealing that care homes and other social care services failed consistently to apply safe vetting procedures. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) said, we should be pleased that the Commission for Social Care Inspection is an organisation, which was set up under the Care Standards Act 2000, that goes into establishments so that we can benefit from its findings and learn from it.
	The research states that only 57 per cent. of children's homes, 35 per cent. of adoption agencies and 61 per cent. of residential care homes for younger adults, such as people with learning disabilities, met the minimum standard required. We must find out why those employers fail those whom they are there to support and safeguard from abuse. I sincerely hope that the Bill will go some way towards tackling that, making it more straightforward for employers to perform checks and for tough sanctions to be applied when they do not.
	The Bill lists several establishments in which the bar covers all posts. They include schools—as we would expect—children's hospitals, children's homes and residential care homes for vulnerable adults. The latter is the only establishment for adults that the Bill treats in that way. I am concerned that day centres are not treated in the same way. Many people with learning disabilities attend day centres as part of their weekly routine. Whatever people's feelings about them, day centres are used by many people throughout the country. I am worried that people who are on the barred list will be allowed to work as cooks, cleaners and in administrative positions in day centres. They could work in positions of trust where, especially in smaller day centres, they help vulnerable adults every day.
	I know that the Government are worried that it would be disproportionate to cover every setting in which a day centre may meet, for example, a church hall. The last thing I want to do is suggest that we should stop some of the amazing and fulfilling activities for vulnerable adults in existing settings. However, I would be interested in any amendment that the Government could table to introduce sensible changes to rules about day centres that cover formal day centre settings.
	I want to make some observations about a specific group of young people. I am not sure whether the measure covers them and I would therefore like some clarification from the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) in his winding-up speech.
	In a statement on 19 January, the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills said:
	"Nothing matters to parents more than the safety of their children".—[ Official Report, 19 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 966.]
	As Chair of the newly-established all-party group on Army deaths, I work closely with families who have suffered the loss or ill treatment of children at military barracks at Deepcut, Catterick and elsewhere throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. I am acutely aware of the pain and anger that arises from the suspicion that those with responsibility for the care of children fail to protect young recruits from sexual abuse.
	In his review of the tragic deaths at Deepcut barracks, Nicholas Blake QC found:
	"The system for selecting and vetting instructors, and other members of the permanent staff, for training posts, reporting on their progress and recording concerns that reflect their suitability to perform such a challenging task appears, to the Review, to be in need of revision and improvement."
	At the close of the review, recommendation 12 states:
	"Instructors should be vetted for their suitability to work with young people, applying standards that are no less rigorous than those applied to civilian establishments educating or training people under 18."
	I welcome the Bill's intention to provide proper arrangements for vetting those working with children and barring those who are unsuitable. Family members of the Deepcut & Beyond group believe that we need a system in which child protection comes first, and that nothing about the particular nature of the military environment should contradict that principle. It must be a rigorous system, which draws on the best expert advice. There must be absolute clarity about who does what. The system must command public confidence and be accountable.
	Incidents of child abuse cases in schools and the outcry about staff not receiving enhanced Criminal Records Bureau checks concern all parents. However, Deepcut & Beyond families point out that that problem also exists in military training establishments. Non-commissioned officers and civilian staff do not have Criminal Records Bureau disclosures of any kind.
	Mrs. Lynn Farr, whose son, Private Daniel Farr died at the age of 18 at Catterick, has been told by senior officers at the barracks that CRB disclosures are not required because the recruits are in full-time employment. Those young people are in training. They are being supervised by trainers, most of whom are NCOs. Some trainees are taking NVQs. Surely,Mrs. Farr argues, that must put Army recruits in a position that is analogous to young people working on modern apprenticeships. If those young people were working full-time in civilian life and attending college, as is the case with modern apprenticeships, all the training staff and assessors would be CRB cleared to an enhanced level.
	For the first few weeks on phase 1 training, young people are at their most vulnerable. They are away from home—in some cases, for the first time—and they have a genuine culture shock. Yet, despite the susceptibility of recruits, the trainers and staff involved with them have no CRB clearance of any kind.
	The Government place a high priority on "staying safe" and make it one of the five thematic outcomes of "Every Child Matters". Although some recruits may fall outside the target group of children and young people aged between 0 to 19 years, it is already recognised that, when there are special or additional needs, the age range of the at-risk group may extend to 25 years. The closed nature of the military environment, the strict disciplinary regime and the absence of parental oversight make young soldiers especially vulnerable to the attention of sexual predators.
	Deepcut & Beyond families point to the conviction in August 2003 of former Lance Corporal and serial abuser Leslie Skinner, who was initially charged with male rape and later convicted of multiple charges of indecent assault committed while employed as an NCO trainer at Deepcut barracks in 1996 and 1997. Officers from Surrey police gave evidence to the Defence Committee's inquiry into duty of care that Leslie Skinner had previously been convicted of a sexual offence in Northern Ireland, demoted and transferred by a military court. He was able to obtain employment as a trainer at Deepcut barracks without being subject to any background checks.
	Officers also testified that, while Skinner used his rank to secure compliance from young recruits, none of the 13 complainants had sufficient confidence to utilise the chain of command or any of the then existing mechanisms to register a complaint about their abuse.
	In my capacity as Chair of the all-party group on Army deaths, I wrote to the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig)—I am standing next to two Welsh Members and I am sure that they will tell me off for my pronunciation of myhon. Friend's constituency. I wrote to my hon. Friend on 13 February. He replied on 9 March that
	"you are correct that under the Criminal Justice and Court Service Act 2000, CRB checks cannot currently be carried out on Armed Forces personnel supervising or training young recruits, in particular 16 and 17 year olds, because the recruits are in full time employment... We are therefore working, as a matter of urgency, with DfES and the Home Office on new legislation that would allow employers greater flexibility in carrying out CRB checks on employees in the future."
	In his winding-up speech, will my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary give me an assurance that there is no exercise of Crown immunity in relation to the Bill? Will he tell the House what steps have been taken to ensure that young service recruits are equally protected by law?
	The Department for Education and Skills has written to all schools setting out how the checking system will work, and informing them of the change to mandatory Criminal Records Bureau checks. The Home Secretary has written to all chief constables, chief officers of probation and youth justice boards to restate how the present system works, how it will change, and what priorities are involved. Will the Under-Secretary work with the armed forces Minister to ensure that all commanding officers at military training establishments are also made aware of the strengthened protection that should be available to young recruits? In monitoring the implementation of the legislation, will the Under-Secretary also undertake to assist the Ministry of Defence in ensuring that all staff who will be part of the vetting process receive appropriate training, support and advice on child protection issues?
	The Army has learned lessons as a result of the tragic deaths at Deepcut and elsewhere. Having the will to address the issues of harassment and bullying honestly and without embarrassment is the first step towards creating an environment free from harassment, intimidation and discrimination. We have learned to our cost that voluntary compliance and good will need to be strengthened through legal enforcement.
	We need to get the balance right between adopting a witch hunt mentality and not showing due care and attention in recognising people who are unsuitable and unfit to work with children and/or vulnerable adults, including vulnerable elderly people. We also need to strike a balance between the need to protect children and vulnerable adults and the needs of employers to keep vital education, training and social care services running without getting bogged down in bureaucracy and delay. The Bill does get that balance right, but it will be essential to ensure that the new system is properly resourced, that the independent barring board is adequately staffed and, above all, that those who should know about its work do know about its work, so that the vulnerable people whom we are here to protect can be properly protected.

Annette Brooke: I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) on raisingthose important points about military training establishments. I, too, look forward to hearing the replies from the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda). I also thank the Minister for Children and Families for her clear explanation of the Bill.
	I welcome the Bill, and I should like to place on record the Liberal Democrats' broad support for the measures that it proposes. It is vital that we increase the protection of the most vulnerable members of our society. I should declare that I have not had the advantage of seeing the embargoed Ofsted report, so I shall be unable to comment on it in my speech.
	Reaching this point today seems to have involved an extraordinarily long process, following the tragedies in Soham and the subsequent Bichard inquiry and its recommendations. The former Secretary of State for Education and Skills made statements to the House on 12 and 19 January, while stories in the press centred on cases in which it was revealed that Ministers had made decisions that certain individuals should not be placed on List 99. One of the cases was in Bournemouth, so there was inevitably a great deal of press coverage in my local area. As I reflect on that media frenzy, it seems clear that the outcome of this legislation must be a system in which the public can have confidence.
	The then Secretary of State recognised the necessity for specialist advice for herself in this area, as well as the need for training at all levels—for example, for school governing bodies when making appointments. The proposals for an independent barring board are generally welcome. Its independence, and the fact that Ministers will not be involved in discretionary decisions made by the board, are also welcome and reflect a fundamental change from the present system. The need for widespread relevant training and, even more, for a whole culture of vigilance regarding risks to children and vulnerable adults is vital if we are truly to improve protection.
	The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has made the point that safeguarding is everyone's responsibility, and that was endorsed by the Minister today. Everyone needs to work with that in mind. Age Concern England has stated that public awareness initiatives will be important in informing the public of the existence of the new processes. It is shocking to read examples of the abuse perpetrated day after day on children, older people and those with learning and other disabilities. Some of the examples in the Help the Aged briefing include financial and physical abuse, and remind us of the extent to which many types of abuse remain unreported and undocumented. Campaigns by the NSPCC to encourage children to speak out, and reports from ChildLine, underline the need for vigilance.
	I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Voice UK, which aims to bring to the attention of Members of both Houses of Parliament the needs of people with learning disabilities who have experienced crime or abuse, and to discuss redress and reform. We would certainly welcome any Members who wish to join our discussions. I recognise that the Bill does not cover family and personal relationships, but I hope that it will contribute to real changes in our society. To that end, I look forward to working on it on a constructive cross-party basis.
	It was ironic that when the then Secretary of State was placed under such pressure earlier this year, consultation on these new proposals was already well under way. However, time is passing, and I would like the Under-Secretary to give us an updated timeline for the projected introduction of all the proposed measures, and tell us how any interim measures will impact on recruitment for September.
	The Minister for Children and Families confirmed earlier that Criminal Records Bureau checks are now mandatory for all newly appointed members of the school work force. I welcome that move, as it is long overdue. Will the Under-Secretary clarify whether work will be allowed to commence pending the completion of a CRB check? In response to a parliamentary question on this issue, I was told that in 2005 the average time for an enhanced disclosure was 31.5 days.
	I am worried that a possible upsurge in demand for checks will mean that schools could face difficulties with late teacher appointments. At the very least, clarity is needed, along with a statement on the capacity of the CRB to deal with the checks. I well recall the fiasco when the Government had to retract their requirement for CRB checks for teachers when they were first introduced several years ago, and I am a little worried that we might be heading down that route again as a result of this very welcome initiative. Has sufficient provision been put in place for the CRB? What action will the Under-Secretary take to ensure that it will have sufficient capacity for its enhanced functions as the new procedures are put in place? It will certainly be required to do a great deal more than it does now. It has already been pointed out that the CRB has made some dreadful mistakes, and we shall need to reflect on this matter in Committee.
	I should also like to comment on what appears to have been some very successful cross-party working in the other place, and to put on record our thanks to Lord Adonis, the Minister there, who was so responsive to the discussions that took place at all stages. Perhaps we can look forward to similar levels of responsiveness in this House as we probe some of the outstanding issues, mainly on detail. I have to confess, however, that if that were to be the case, it would be an agreeable surprise.
	This is the fourth Bill with which I have been involved in this Session. Ministers have come and gone, but I welcome the new Under-Secretary of State to his position. I also thank him for his recent courtesy in meeting me, and others involved with the Bill— [ Interruption.] I can hear by the response from Members on the official Opposition Benches that they agree that the success of Opposition parties in persuading the Government to accept amendments has been rather limited, to put it mildly.

Andrew Turner: Does the hon. Lady really think that one of the murderers of Mary-Ann Lenehan, who was under 18 when that appalling crime was committed, should not automatically be barred from working with children?

Annette Brooke: I would expect that person to be barred, but I think that as a general principle it is better for the needs of those under 18 to be assessed, and for the whole case to be assessed. I support the right to representation, but I would expect someone in a case like that to end up on the list of those automatically barred. It is a question of the route that is taken. I support the right to representation because with some offences, treatment will be possible. There is evidence of the effectiveness of therapeutic services. Again, that is a matter for the discretion of the IBB, and the type of offence involved will affect the exercising of that discretion.
	I spoke at length about the need for therapeutic services during the passage of the Sexual OffencesAct 2003. The NSPCC is currently campaigning for the provision of therapeutic counselling for the abused. We should bear in mind the fact that those who have been abused may become abusers themselves.
	I have a constituency case, which I have mentioned before, involving a couple who have moved into my constituency; their son has been in prison for many years, and will probably never come out. At the age of 14 he was found guilty of a relatively minor offence. His parents paid for assessments, because they were not automatically provided, and according to those assessments he posed no danger, but tragically, at 19 he went on to kill someone. It is possible that therapeutic services would not have made a difference in his case, in which event he would still be on the barred list, but it is just possible that the murder could have been prevented, and tragedy for two families avoided, if the treatment had been given early enough.
	I am worried about the complexity of the new scheme, and about how the details can be conveyed to people. Communication will require much more than information packs and assurances that information is available; there will have to be a great deal of signposting, and a strategy for spreading the information among those who need it. Training, too, will be necessary. I am also worried about the costs—have they been fully assessed?—and about whether the CRB will be able to take on all its new functions.
	Finally, I am worried about the lack of positive measures in the Bill. The Minister may say that it focuses on vetting and barring arrangements, but I believe that it should include further measures to guarantee wider outcomes. The Minister said that safety and protection would depend on robust judgments, sound processes and competent personal responses, but we need a general approach that will improve the current position. The Ofsted report will prove relevant to that. We need a package of measures alongside the Bill. I understand that an accreditation scheme operates in Northern Ireland, and that, too, may be relevant.
	We must accept that children and vulnerable adults will always experience occasional contact with those who have offended in some way. As others have pointed out, it will always be difficult to check workers coming here from abroad. Indeed, it will probably be impossible to check them to the same extent. That is why we need an overall embracing of the principles that we all want a safer society and we need people to react in certain ways, always thinking about the need to protect vulnerable children and adults.
	I therefore ask the Minister to consider what else can be put in place alongside the Bill, so that it is not, as the hon. Member for Basingstoke put it, another series of measures that will not be implemented properly. To make it work—and I want it to work—we need something else: we need the Government to give strong leadership.

Madeleine Moon: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), and I agree with her that some areas of the Bill need clarification, particularly those relating to the public appointees office and the short-term playgroups to which she referred. As she will be aware, packages will have to be put together to accompany the regulatory bodies dealing with the many agencies working with groups that will need to understand this Bill. Groups such as the Commission for Social Care Inspection, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales and the general bodies that regulate chiropodists, physiotherapists and so forth have a critical role to play in ensuring that those whom the Bill will impact on are fully aware of what that impact will be. I am also particularly pleased to follow my hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble), to whom I will always defer in this field, as her knowledge is second to none.
	It is a particular pleasure to speak so soon after last week's debate in this Chamber on the creation of a commissioner for older people. The Government are looking further to improve protection for older people in Wales by creating such a commissioner. That follows the creation of a commissioner for younger people and children in Wales—a role that has expanded to England—which has enabled additional safeguards to be put in place, and allowed new efforts to be madein examining and exploring additional ways of safeguarding children in Wales. I hope that this Bill and the creation of a commissioner for older people will have the same impact in Wales.
	Before entering the House, I was an inspector with the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales, so although my colleagues have referred to the work of CSCI in England, my experience is with CSIW and certainly not with CSCI in England. The Bill will support the regulatory agencies and local authorities in much of the work that they already do. It will also enable work that currently cannot be done in the public domain to be considered and to come into play.
	I hope that the Bill will also allay some of the hysteria surrounding the question of who will and will not be reported for inappropriate behaviour towards children and vulnerable adults. My hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood said that under the terms of the Bill, we are all vulnerable adults, in that we are all vulnerable at some point in our existence. That is true. We all want such protection at the point when we become a vulnerable adult, which often happens when, for example, we are in receipt of medical services.

Hywel Williams: Does the hon. Lady agree that the Bill defines what a vulnerable adult is very broadly? There are 10 descriptions of such a person in clause 44, one of which is someone who
	"requires assistance in the conduct of his own affairs".
	I frequently require assistance in the conduct of my affairs, but I do not regard myself as vulnerable. Does the hon. Lady not agree that there is a risk here of not seeing the wood for the trees?

Madeleine Moon: I thank you for those corrections,Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	I have not had an opportunity to look in detail at the clause referred to by the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams), so I am unable to respond fully to the suggestion that if someone required support and assistance when looking at their finances, for example, that would make them a vulnerable adult. My recollection is that more than an individual's needing assistance with their finances would be required to make them a vulnerable adult.
	I turn to a matter that causes me concern. Last week, I attended an excellent meeting in my constituency, at which I met carers to celebrate carers week and the vital role that they play. A lady whose husband is an active member of the scouting service talked to me about her fears. She has told her husband, who is involved in scout jamborees, that if a young child comes up to him and, for example, wants to hold his hand, he must not do so because that could be misconstrued, and that he must not put suntan lotion on the children when they go to camp for the same reason. The Bill will directly address some of the anxieties that people have about their activities being wrongly interpreted, perhaps leading to their being included on a barring list. I hope that it will alleviate some of the unnecessary fears and anxieties that have arisen.
	I am especially pleased that parents will be able to check the status of those whom they are going to employ as private tutors. I raised that issue with the commissioner for children and young people in Wales, and with the previous Secretary of State, following an approach made to me by a constituent. She became very alarmed when she found out that a man who had been convicted of stalking her daughter was advertising his services as a private tutor to children, that he was not required to reveal his criminal past, and that there was no way in which someone employing him could find out about it. I am particularly pleased that the Bill removes that loophole.
	I am pleased, too, that paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 33(6) require people to be referred—and provide the capacity to be referred retrospectively—to the barring board. I am sure that people who have worked with the Protection of Children Act 1999 and the protection of vulnerable adults scheme, the regulatory agencies and bodies such as the Nursing and Midwifery Council will welcome that.
	I remember a case in which the Nursing and Midwifery Council had issued a number of cautions about a person who had applied to be manager of a care home. The cautions were serious, involving the physical restraint of a service user with a duvet, using cigarettes to bribe a service user to misbehave when a colleague was on duty and other serious allegations that I shall not mention. In fact, the cautions had no status and could not be used to refuse registration to the individual concerned, but that will no longer be the case because the Bill will allow information about someone found to have behaved inappropriately by a regulatory body to be passed to the barring board.
	In another case, I was involved with members of staff in a care home for nearly six months. Alongside the POVA co-ordinator of the local authority in which the home was based, I made regular unannounced visits to the care home. We gathered a huge amount of information about the abuse that was taking place there, but because of the nature of the service users in the home, no criminal prosecutions could be taken. The police were unable to take statements from the service users and could not put together a case that would stand up in court. Indeed, there was nowhere for us to go with that information. Now there will be somewhere to go—the barring board.
	The members of staff involved in the abuse leftthe home, mostly before they were sacked, and subsequently applied for jobs in care homes elsewhere. As no criminal prosecution had been launched, the owner of the home felt very uncomfortable about refusing them a reference. When an application for a reference was made, she would always refer them on to the inspectorate, which mainly said that the person had been part of an investigation into abuse within the home. That was enough to warn people that they needed to explore problems further. Information that does not meet the required standard for a criminal prosecution—sometimes because the people who have been abused have a learning disability or lack capacity on account of dementia or age—is often held in POVA and POCA investigations or in the monitoring of procedures. Such information can now be sent to the barring board, which I am sure will prove invaluable in providing protection.
	I accept the need for regulation to control how that information is passed on and to provide people with a means of appealing against it, but such information is likely to open up to challenge people who are unsuitable to work in care settings. They will now know that an investigation can have serious consequences.
	Clause 11 is important, as it relates to the failure of residential homes to carry out checks. Members might be aware that the inspectorate can take only limited steps against homes that fail to carry out such checks. We know that checks are not being carried out because the inspectorate has highlighted and vigorously pursued the issue. It is not always easy to ensure that checks are rigorous and thorough.
	Again, I cite the example of someone who applied for registration as a manager of a care home. They claimed to have provided full and thorough documentation of their qualifications to the care home's manager, who subsequently left. The applicant had been operating in a lower-grade position at the home. When they applied to become the manager, they alleged that the documentation had been removed by the previous manager in an attempt to discredit them. It took a long time—I estimate that communications went back and forth for at least six months—before we categorically proved that the individual had none of the qualifications that they claimed and that none of the checks that they claimed had been carried out was undertaken.
	There are limits to how far an inspectorate can go with a home that fails to meet the regulations. The inspectorate might apply to remove the registration from a home and ultimately seek to close the home by taking it to the tribunal, but if steps are put in place at the very last moment to rectify the failings and to meet the standards, the tribunal has no option but to allow the home to continue to operate. Again, it is hoped that clause 11 and the requirement in respect of failing in the duty to check will place another responsibility on care home owners to ensure that they carry out the necessary checks into qualifications and criminal records.

Andrew Turner: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon), who has painstakingly—almost painfully—illustrated some of the devastating difficulties that she has become familiar with and that some of us have sadly become familiar with through our surgeries. That sets in context a couple of the rules that I almost invariably come to the House with. One is that there is no problem so great that the Government cannot make it worse and the second is that a Bill that has all-party support is almost certainly either wrong or inadequately scrutinised, or both. This is not such a Bill.
	The broad shape of the Bill is reasonable. Difficult judgments have to be made and many difficult lines have to be drawn in what is inevitably a grey area. It is as well to recognise that, although we are working hard to get that right, we might well—on both sides—get it wrong in good faith. Whatever we do and however hard we try, we cannot guarantee safety either for the vulnerable adults or for the children who are the subject of the Bill. The best people to safeguard children are their parents, acting together and making decisions on the basis of their knowledge of their children and of the people who are to work with their children, and, in many cases—let us be honest about it—on the basis of their gut instinct.
	A friend of mine had a dog that gave birth to six beautiful puppies a few days ago and she remarked to me how wonderful it was to see that new mother bite the umbilical cord. What taught that dog to bite through the umbilical cords of those puppies? It was nothing other than instinct. The instincts of parents will quite often point them in the right direction. No amount of regulation or legislation can do that. One of the things that most concerns me about the action of professionals in all sorts of areas is that they inadvertently undermine parents' confidence in their instinct to act in a particular way. We are as bad sometimes, because we illuminate and flag up difficult cases, and we frighten people who need not necessarily be frightened. If they look after their children to the best of their ability and their knowledge, they are certainly going to safeguard them more than any number of politicians or professionals can. If they exercise their knowledge of their children and exercise trust in those whom they know, and if they have some choice in where their children are educated, they will be making good decisions. To those who say that most sex abuse takes places in the home, I would mention that most sex abuse that takes place in the home takes place between people who are not blood relations. It is as well that we should recognise that and not use that point as an excuse to undermine what goes on inside the home.
	There have been a couple of welcome changes in the Government's position in recent days. One is the recognition that there is a shortage of prison places in this country. The protection of vulnerable people is, in part, assisted by the imprisonment of those who would exploit or abuse them. There is a lot wrong with our prisons, but the aphorism that prison works is certainly true in one respect: it takes out of circulation those who would exploit or abuse young people and adults.

Anne Main: The point about prison, whether itworks and how long we imprison people for has been a subject of much debate. For example, in my constituency—I know that this is fairly typical—Mr. Michael Marsh, who had already served a sentence for sexual assault on an 11-year-old and had been let out, was convicted again on Friday for the abuse of a six-year-old boy, but his case will probably be eligible for consideration in 2008, despite the probation service saying that, in its opinion, he will remain a constant danger. Surely that is all part of protecting our vulnerable young people. If those people are in prison, we must make sure that they stay there for the correct sentence.

Andrew Turner: We must indeed make sure that they stay in prison. We must make sure that the judiciary are enabled to imprison them for an appropriate length of time and that the judiciary and the Prison Service are enabled to provide appropriate services in prison so that, for example, prisoners are not shunted from one prison to another in the middle of courses that may be designed to address their offending behaviour. There is a lot that is right about imprisonment, but there are some things that are wrong about the way in which our prisons work and we would do well to recognise those things.
	Another way in which the Government are moving in the right direction is when they talk about examining—I hope re-examining, because I hope that this was not ruled out in a knee-jerk reaction in the past—the implementation of Megan's law in the United States or Sarah's law, as we might call it here. Megan's law, or Sarah's law, is not a charter for vigilantes. It gets to the heart of whether people can trust the state. If the state is going to lie to parents when they ask, "Is the man round the corner a sex offender?"—that is what the absence of Megan's law, or Sarah's law, says; it says that the police are going to lie—people will cease to trust the police and public authorities. I strongly advocate that we examine with an open mind whether it is better for people to know who the local sex offenders are than for those matters to be concealed from them and for them no longer to trust public authority. That will lead to people being treated more reasonably, not more unreasonably.
	I will illustrate that point with an example from my constituency, where a particularly disgusting offender was released recently. He was released back on to the estate on which he had lived for most of his life. Most people knew that he had offended. In this case, it did not take the police to tell them; they recognised him. Parents knew him and knew that it was appropriate to tell their children to avoid him—just as in villages parents sometimes know and make it clear to their children that it is unwise to visit a particular house as a child on one's own. It is greatly to our advantage to trust people and, in particular, to trust parents with that knowledge. By all means take rigorous measures against those who indulge in vigilantism, but let us start by trusting the people, rather than telling them that they are wrong and that the professionals and politicians know better than they do.
	There are two other areas where I fear that there is still a great deal more work to be done with offenders. As my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) has just suggested, one area is follow-up for those who are released. It is very concerning that people can be released from prison on parole or probation without even being interviewed face-to-face by the authorities that make that decision. I hope that, in future, in no case involving a child or a vulnerable adult will such parole be given without an interview. I hope that the Minister can give us that assurance from the Front Bench when he winds up.
	On the second area in which the Government have not done all the things that they could do, I am sure that the Minister will be aware of the debate on the implementation of the Bichard report, which took place in Westminster Hall on 8 February. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) was present. The IMPACT database was recommended in June 2004, with a full business case to follow in March 2005. However, we were told that a full business case still was not in place by March 2006. Has that full business case yet been produced? Has the implementation date for the IMPACT database slipped beyond 2007? I certainly got the impression from the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears), that the date had slipped to 2010, so I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda), can reassure me that I have got that wrong.
	The Bill contains a wide range of provisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) were right to say that the Bill is too broad and hollow and that it contains far too much regulation-making power, but far too little detail. We want clarity and certainty when dealing with such matters because as hon. Members on both sides of the House have observed, the proprietors of small care homes are not blessed—if that is the right word—with an army of lawyers.
	I wonder why governors will come under the provisions of the Bill on regulated activities because they are not normally left in sole charge of individuals pupils. I also therefore wonder why governors in schools, but not colleges, will be covered, and why people will be covered if they became governors in 2007, but not in 1997. The Bill gives no particular justification for such peculiar arrangements.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the Minister for Children and Families referred to foreign workers in their speeches. Should it not be an offence under clause 7 for foreign nationals who have been convicted overseas of a crime for which they would be convicted in this country to apply for employment in a regulated capacity? If a person with convictions that are akin to those that would bar a person in this country does any of the things covered by clause 7, surely it should be offence. Bizarrely, it will be easier to employ someone with a Criminal Records Bureau check that is five years old, or indeed someone with no CRB check at all who comes from a country in which records are not kept, than a college leaver in this country, given that the CRB sometimes produces responses to inquiries very slowly. I hope that that matter will be addressed.
	Will the Under-Secretary give us some assurances about the behaviour of fellow patients, especially patients in mental health units, and, for that matter, fellow pupils and students in colleges? Health workers and others have a responsibility to those who have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983, for example, to ensure that other people in similar circumstances are not a threat to those patients. If those people are a threat to those patients, health workers and others must be given sufficient information to know that those people are a threat to the patients and must take measures to protect them. Nurses and health workers are sometimes a little too inclined to feel that they must give patients the right to make a choice, rather than protecting patients who are perhaps unable to exercise such choice in the rational manner that we would expect.

Hywel Williams: I fully accept the hon. Gentleman's point about people in psychiatric units. Does he also accept that it is extremely difficult to foresee the people who might be a danger in one way or another? That is one of the reasons why the Government have experienced such difficulty in introducing a new mental health Bill to replace the 1983 Act?

Hywel Williams: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber). She made an interesting but short speech. I too shall try to be short. The Bill is significant for us in Wales because of the abuse scandals that have occurred in Wales, and the results of those scandals. We had the Ely hospital scandal in the 1960s, which led to the establishment of the all-Wales strategy for people with learning difficulties. There were the child abuse scandals in north Wales, and there were some in south Wales as well. Those scandals led indirectly to the establishment of the Children's Commissioner for Wales. Those were positive moves, but those were achieved at a tremendous cost to vulnerable people who went through a great deal of suffering before the system changed.
	The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) spoke about predicting danger. I hope that the hon. Gentleman takes this in the best possible spirit, but with hindsight it is easy to see Huntley as someone with a previous conviction and was clearly a danger. Looking forward is clearly more difficult. We should be careful before we put our trust in systems of foresight. They do not work. I say that as a former child care social worker, an educator of social workers and a sometime member of the social services inspectorate. I also did various other jobs in that field. I hope thatI am very modest about my abilities to predict, and also about the abilities of my former colleagues.
	I, too, welcome the Bill. Ensuring the safety of vulnerable people should be the highest priority for those who care, for those who manage, and for elected Members and for law makers. As I said, I am a former teacher of social workers. I am familiar with the problematic nature of the relationship between someone who cares and someone who receives care. Keeping that professional distance is one of the most difficult things to teach prospective care workers. They might understand the point, acquire some skills and even acquire the proper attitudes to this difficult question, but putting these things into practice is extremely difficult.
	It is my experience that people learn most effectively how to keep that professional distance when the highest standards of good practice are in place within the agency. Whatever formal system we put in place to identify people who might be a danger should not lull us into thinking, "That's the job done." We need to maintain a professional culture within care services, which will ensure an awareness of these issues.
	I was reminded, as I was listening to hon. Members earlier, that there is always the possibility of making what is called a class mistake. Looking up at the glass screen that we now have in the Chamber, one might imagine that the people on one side of it are all right per se, because they have passed the test. But that does not actually prevent someone from throwing purple flour at the Prime Minister. We must be careful not to be lulled into a false sense of security. We must ensure that organisations' policies and practice on staff recruitment, management and staff development ensure that there is safety. The culture of the organisation is the strongest ongoing safeguard that we can put into care. That is the culture of care, vigilance and clarity about what is expected of organisations and individuals.
	I am sure that many hon. Members have people who are dear to them who are in a vulnerable situation. Both my mother and my brother are receiving intensive care, one in a residential situation and the other at home. The Bill's provisions are of the utmost importance to me and also to other hon. Members and those outside this place. My impression is that the present system has worked fairly well, after a fashion, in most circumstances.
	When I was teaching social workers I used to be frustrated by delays in police checks, as they were then, when I was trying to place social workers in agencies. I understand that things have become a good deal better, but I know that there are still delays. As a Member of Parliament, I was approached by a constituent recently who told me that he had been employed as a bus driver to drive vulnerable people around. He was concerned because he had a conviction for assault. He had not been asked about his convictions. He was not caring directly for the people on the bus, other than that he was driving them. He came to see me because he was in dispute with the Criminal Records Bureau because he thought he had been wrongly described as someone who had a conviction for assault, but that is another matter.
	The world might have moved on, but there are still some reasons for concern, including, as I told the Minister for Children and Families and Opposition Members, the employment of foreign workers. The individuals whom I have met in my area are largely employed in homes for the elderly, and are of a high standard—they certainly have a strong work ethic and are eminently good employees. However, full information about them is not available immediately, or even after a considerable period. I accept the fact that the Government are addressing the issue, but may I emphasise the fact that it is a growing concern? As has been said, records are not available in some countries and are incomplete in others.
	I should therefore be grateful if, in his winding-up speech, the Under-Secretary responded to the point that I made about the onus being on both the employer and employment agencies. This afternoon, I discussed the situation with a home owner who employed people from the Philippines, but had to wait three months for proper checks to be made, which had an impact on the way in which she planned her work force. She wanted to recruit employees, as she was short of people, but she had to delay the process of appointment while those checks were made.
	Another problem that emerged from that discussion was translation. We must consider translation costs and the accuracy of records in other languages. I do not know how the Government can crack that nut, but expertise in translation is available, albeit at a price. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised the issue of definition. The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) asked what is considered frequent and what occasional. In Wales, a well-organised youth movement, Urdd Gobaith Cymru, which consists of about 30,000 members, holds a cultural festival once a year for four days. It is a residential event, and it is the only time that those children go away with the organisation. Even though the festival lasts only four days, that is enough opportunity for someone with ill intent to perpetrate a crime. I therefore share hon. Members' concerns about the definition of "occasional" and "frequent".
	I am concerned, too, about the cost of disclosure and the question of who pays. The other day, I was told that that cost would be about £36. I do not know whether that is correct, but such a sum would be a disincentive for an unemployed person who wants to work in the care sector. I therefore hope that the Government will encourage employers to pick up part, if not all, of the cost, as that would be a useful step forward. Once the Bill is implemented, I hope that the Government will make the utmost effort to make people aware of its provisions and persuade them to acquire information. They should sell this hard, because it is important not only for people who are cared for but for relatives who share their concerns.
	Will the Minister ensure that in Wales, that selling or persuasion is carried out through the medium of Welsh? Many vulnerable people in care, including people with learning difficulties and older people who have had a stroke and have lost the ability to speak their second language, do not have a practical command of English, so I hope that the Government take the issue seriously. I hope, too, that they communicate with the public as effectively as possible, if only to reduce the hysteria that the issue sometimes provokes.
	I said earlier that my brother receives a great deal of care. He has been empowered—I think that is the word—to employ care workers himself. People are allowed to make direct payments, and some of them receive large sums from the Disability Living Foundation. They are encouraged to employ carers and to play a full part in the planning of their care, so it is essential that they have access to the information on their carers' antecedents. The vetting and barring scheme can be accessed in various ways, and local authorities should be able to act on behalf of service users, for whom they have considerable responsibility.
	Finally, may I return to the language question? In Wales, a number of organisations operate through the medium of Welsh, including Urdd Gobaith Cymru, youth clubs, church groups, Sunday schools and so on. Their internal paperwork is conducted in Welsh, so can the Government make sure that they can correspond with the board in Welsh from the outset? The Children's Commissioner for Wales has responsibilities for young children, many of whom do not speak English, and he took great care to ensure that from day one a bilingual service was available, which normalised the use of the Welsh language both for the children and for the organisations that work with them. It is much more effective and cheaper to ensure that a fully bilingual service is available from the outset, rather than tacking something on when people like me start to complain. I therefore make that plea to the Minister, and I would be grateful, too, if he wrote to interested Members about systems of accountability, both to the House and to the National Assembly for Wales.
	The Bill's aim is laudable. Implementation will be complex, but it must be completed within a short period, and I hope that the Government will take vigorous actions to achieve that. Members on both sides of the House share responsibility for the measure, and we too should take swift action to ensure that there is protection for the vulnerable people to whom we owe such a duty.

Margaret Moran: If I have the opportunity to serve on the Committee, we will no doubt continue that debate. We are speaking about relatively small numbers of school governors.
	My second question relates to cost. It is not clear to me from the Bill where the cost of those CRB checks for school governors will fall. Thirdly, I share concerns that have been expressed by Members on both sides of the House about the requirement not applying to colleges, given that there are under-16s going through our colleges.
	Ministers will be aware of the concerns of children's charities. The Bill is a key piece of child protection legislation, following intensive media attention. It is essential that we introduce the checking and monitoring outlined in the Bill, but keeping children safe in schools and other settings requires much broader action than the improved vetting of staff. It requires safe recruitment, pre-appointment checks and a child protection mindset in all cases and venues where there are opportunities for unsupervised contact with children. A clear understanding of roles and expectations is needed.
	Some of the children's charities are expressing concerns that many of us share regarding the decision-making processes of the IBB and accountability. Concerns have been expressed during the debate about under-18s and the need for a commitment to different legislative treatment of those under 18. There are concerns about the complexity of the scheme.
	I and many others worry that employers, especially small employers, will not understand how the different regimes in the Bill affect them. There will be a need for good communication and clear guidance if employers are not to fall foul of the legislation inadvertently and allow those who should be checked and monitored to escape because of a lack of understanding. As I asked my right hon. Friend earlier, how will we monitor the extra safeguards required in respect of controlled activity? How will we ensure that the scheme works in practice and that the guidance that she mentioned in her earlier reply is monitored?
	I have a particular interest in online child protection issues, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) for raising some of the issues on which she and I and many of the children's charities have worked. I am delighted that one of my ten-minute Bills dealing with online moderation has sprung to life in schedule 3. Moderators are entrusted with safeguarding our children in relation to the online world. When parents know a site is moderated, they assume that it is safe, that their children can chat, as they do, and that moderators are overseeing what is going on in the virtual world. In fact, that is probably one of the least safe environments because parents are not necessarily there to see what is going on, unlike the situation outside the school playground.
	Several years ago I became involved in a project called Kidspeak, which worked with most of the national children's charities to set up a discussion site for children who have witnessed domestic violence. It follows on from one of the first online parliamentary projects on survivors of domestic violence. In setting up a website where children can discuss safely their experiences of witnessing domestic violence, it is essential that the child's confidentiality is maintained and their safety is ensured.
	I took the view that we needed the best moderators that we could find. I contacted the then e-envoy's office to ask for a list of approved moderators, only to find that the list contained moderating organisations that had done no checks whatsoever on moderators. In other words, the people ostensibly safeguarding the virtual world and the discussions in which children are involved online had been subject to no CRB checks and, in some cases, were being recruited online, so nobody had any idea who the people were. That is important, because we know that adults have many opportunities in the online world to groom children without any intervention or any checking—sometimes such adults disguise themselves as children, but in this case they would adopt the guise of a responsible adult—which can lead to paedophile activity. I am delighted that the Government have seen the wisdom of my ten-minute Bill. More importantly, the safeguards that apply in the real world will also apply in the online world, which is essential.
	The Bill introduces safeguards to UK-based moderated sites, but what will happen when the moderators are not employed in the UK? Many websites and internet service providers employ moderators outside the UK, which places them outside the checking and monitoring regime set up by the Bill. That gap might create an issue, because parents might believe that all websites are now safe because all moderators are checked. We should go further, and I therefore ask the Minister to consider whether websites that do not employ UK-based moderators and are not subject to the regime in the Bill should be labelled to allow parents to make an informed choice. At the very least, we should produce guidance for parents on that issue.
	We know that convicted sex offenders frequently commit offences not only in this country, but overseas. It is apposite that we are in the middle of the World cup—I am sure that everyone is watching the football on the telly as we speak; they certainly will be tomorrow—because, without any conviction, football hooligans whom the police deem to be unwelcome in a country can have their passports removed. When convicted sex offenders travel from this country to a country in which they deem it easier to carry out their paedophile activities, however, they are not subject to any such restrictions. Convicted sex offenders currently have to notify the police if they travel overseas for three days or more. We should reduce that period, because if someone hops on easyJet at Luton airport, they can be anywhere in three hours, let alone three days. We should include a provision in the Bill to stop such paedophile activity by taking away people's passports. If such provisions apply to football hooligans, why on earth can they not apply to repeat convicted sex offenders?
	This Bill and other Home Office legislation can fill some of the gaps on child protection. When my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families responded to my earlier intervention, she said that those who are convicted of accessing online child pornography will be subject to barring under the Bill, which is important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) has eloquently outlined, such a provision would indicate that we are serious about stamping out online child abuse.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley has said, child pornography cannot be accessed accidentally, and it is vital that we bring those convicted of such abuse—those caught by Operation Ore—within the remit of the Bill.

Margaret Moran: The fact that someone accepted a caution for accessing child pornography under Operation Ore does not mean that an offence was not committed—there is plenty of evidence to suggest that some of those cautioned were repeat offenders. As my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley has said, the child exploitation and online protection centre takes that issue extremely seriously. Tragically, a three-month baby was abused in a recent case in Hertfordshire, which is adjacent to my constituency, and the conviction in that case was obtained through Operation Ore, because the offenders repeatedly downloaded child pornography. As the CEOP knows, all too often and all too tragically offences in the virtual world translate into actual abuse in our all too real world, which is why we must tackle online child abuse as hard and as fast as we can, and I commend the Bill and the comments by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families in that respect.

Anne Main: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran). I support the principle of the Bill, which I welcome as a parent and on behalf of other parents. We need as many measures as possible to help ensure greater protection for children and vulnerable adults, but, like many hon. Members who have spoken today, I am concerned about how we can make the system work. The Government have a history of introducing legislation to protect children and adults, which is laudable, but such legislation is too often not acted upon speedily or not robustly implemented—feet seem to drag.
	The Bill has been a long time coming. The then Home Secretary issued an urgent call for measures such as a single central register, which led to a 20-month wait—the supporting computer system is due to go online six years after that urgent call. I know that many members of the public are concerned about the workings of the computer industry. We rely on IT, but we have not demonstrated to the public that we can make the systems work.
	Quite properly, parents expect the highest standards from those who care for children at school. They expect assistants to be screened and teachers to be checked in order to weed out those who might wish to prey upon our children. I shall refer to clauses 8 to 17, which specify that it is an offence for a regulated provider—a school—to permit an individual to engage in regulated activities without first making an appropriate check or receiving written confirmation from a supply teacher agency.
	I want to focus on supply teacher agencies, because I am concerned how effective the checks will be. As my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) said, the Government recognised that schools must have confidence in the quality of staff whom they receive from agencies in 2002. Some time ago, I worked as a supply teacher and I welcome the checks that have been introduced since then, but too many such checks are not taken up as robustly as they should be. In recognition of the need for supply teachers to be regulated, the quality mark scheme was established. However, that scheme, which was designed to help to weed out poor agencies, is not being used properly by schools. It appears that many schools pay no attention to whether agencies supplying staff have signed up to it. The Ofsted report—it has been embargoed but we can refer to it—says:
	"The exact number of teacher supply agencies is not known, but one official from the DfEs estimates the number to be 300 and another estimated it was 1,500; the DTI suggests 'it is in the hundreds rather than thousands'."
	We do not even know how many agencies we have. That is another fundamental flaw. They must be properly regulated and we need clarification on that.
	It is also worrying that anyone can set up a supply agency as long as they comply with the legislation. A recent report commissioned by the Government showed that 90 per cent. of schools ignore the quality mark scheme designed to regulate supply agencies and said that only 8 per cent. of schools felt that the scheme was a "very important factor". I suggest that there is a marketing issue here. We have heard that information about the Bill must be made available. We also need to get everybody to buy into the need for proper regulation and checks. More than half of all primary and nursery schools and 80 per cent. of all secondary schools use agency supply staff, with 40,000 people a year working as supply teachers. Many work in schools in all our constituencies. Yet Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations has said that she felt, as a parent and a PTA member, that it was "unforgivable" that supply teachers were working with children before checks were completed. A scheme with the best of intentions is not delivering the reassurances that parents deserve. We must ensure that any new schemes deliver a better service.
	On a different note, it appears prominently in the media today—as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Luton, South, who is no longer in her place—that under current legislation only three paedophiles have been banned from taking sex trips abroad. That law was hurriedly put in place three years ago following an outcry against people travelling to abuse in other countries and demands that we should stop people with those intentions. Christine Beddoe, director of ECPAT UK, a coalition of children's charities, described that legislation as
	"a cumbersome and unwieldy system"
	and said that it does not work principally because there is not enough central intelligence and shared information across the police and the judiciary and between countries. People such as supply teachers are coming from abroad to work with our children, but if we cannot get information on, and let people know about, our own paedophiles travelling abroad, how can we have confidence that we will get all these things to fall into place when we want to be able to screen people coming to work with vulnerable adults? The NSPCC has criticised loopholes in the Bill on the lack of vetting for overseas teachers. I understand that the Minister accepts the existence of that loophole and is reviewing the process. However, like Christine Beddoe, I am worried that the central intelligence does not exist and hope that robust measures will be put in place to address the deficiencies.
	I should like an assurance from the Minister that if we support the Bill it will be robustly implemented and that information will be shared between agencies. We do not want any more cumbersome and unwieldy legislation. The public do not want another great idea or strong headline that in the end does not deliver what we all want, which is to protect our children. We all know that paedophiles will seize every opportunity to abuse children, so we need to deal with the detailed nitty-gritty that stops them from finding the casual camp that operates only for five days, or the Urdd Gobaith Cymru that operates for four days over the festival period of the Eisteddfod. Those are opportunities that paedophiles seize upon. Our children are precious. If the Bill is supposed to deliver robust and effective checks for their sakes, I ask the Government to ensure that that happens Michael Marsh in my constituency abused, was let out and then abused again, and now may well be let out in 2008. I need to know where such people are and whether they are working with my children and those of others. As has been proved by Age Concern, they may well stop abusing children and move on to work in the adult care industry and abuse elderly adults.
	I implore the Government to look carefully at the problems and loopholes that are highlighted in the Ofsted report, which many of us will read in full tomorrow having only glanced at it today. I hope that in Committee the loopholes mentioned by my Friend the Member for Basingstoke will be closed and the terminology tightened so that we do not have another unwieldy, cumbersome, useless, woolly piece of legislation.

Robert Wilson: I apologise for not being here for the opening speech of the Minister for Children and Families, the right hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Beverley Hughes). Unfortunately, I was delayed finalising a lengthy inquiry of the Education and Skills Committee into special educational needs. If any group needs our support and protection, those with special educational needs are right up there at the top of the list.
	As the last Back-Bench speaker in the debate—I shall try not to take it personally, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will keep my comments brief and not repeat the points raised by other speakers. I hope that no one would argue that the new vetting and barring scheme for people who work with children and vulnerable adults was not long overdue. Sir Michael Bichard's report made a number of important recommendations and it has taken us too long to get to the point at which we can say, hand on heart, that our children are safe in our schools. Recent local experience has made me particularly conscious of this and I should like to take a few moments to explain why.
	When the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the right hon. Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly) confirmed to the House in January 2006 that88 people with cautions or convictions for sex offences had been banned from the classroom, I immediately wrote to my two local education authorities, and submitted parliamentary questions to the Department for Education and Skills about the issue. In both cases, I was seeking assurances that children in my constituency were not being placed in harm's way or at risk.
	I immediately discovered anomalies in the system. For example, many teachers in post since before 2002 had not been checked by the Criminal Records Bureau, because the legislation in force at the time did not require such a check. Furthermore, schools that checked teachers and classroom assistants often did not share the resulting information with their local education authority. When they did, the local education authority had to destroy the information after a short period of time under the data protection laws.
	One of my local authorities, Wokingham district council, explained that it was difficult to offer any assurance about children's safety, but said that it would spend £60,000 on checking any staff who had not previously been checked—that is, those who had been employed before 2002. The reaction from Reading borough council was, sadly, very political. Its lead councillor for children's services accused me of all manner of things, saying that I could have asked the LEA's director of education these questions—as he had—and been assured that there were no sex offenders in Reading's schools. He also appeared in the local media to assure parents that no child was at risk. However, when I checked with the director of education, it turned out that the police were still making inquiries, and that those inquiries would show that a sex offender who had received a caution was teaching in a primary school in Reading.
	The director of education said that he could not assure anybody or any councillor that children were completely safe in local schools, and only last week, Reading borough council was forced to admit that the department was in chaos. Urgent action is being taken to deal with the deep-seated and deep-rooted problems in the local education authority.
	I raise that example because it is important to understand that, no matter how good the legislation—as we have heard from many people tonight, this legislation is far from perfect—its implementation is key to its success. In Reading, the lead councillor for children's services has shown himself to be unfit for public office. Assuring parents that there was absolutely no danger to their children when he knew that that was not the case is unforgivable. He played politics and put children at risk in the most diabolical way.
	This legislation will only be as good as the councillors and officers who implement it. My experience is that most councillors do not play politics with the lives of children and let us hope that Reading replaces its lead councillor for children's services as soon as possible so that we can have confidence in the Bill and that it will be implemented properly in my constituency. It is a real test of local public confidence.
	That said, I support much of this long overdue Bill. In particular, I support the integration of the various lists in one place and the removal of decisions from Ministers to a new independent body. Giving employers access to "real time" checks on prospective employees is also a step in the right direction, but I must sound a note of caution: the success of the legislation will also rest heavily on the IT systems that lie behind it.
	We all know that the Government have form on IT systems, so I seek assurances from Ministers about the successful implementation of this IT project. I am also concerned that it is not expected to be operational for four years. If this IT project goes like many of the others, we can add at least several years to that. What assurances can the Minister give on the timely implementation of the IT project? What impact will not having the IT systems in place have on the rest of the legislation and its implementation?
	I have two further concerns. One has been raised by Baroness Buscombe in relation to an adult list and a child list—I shall leave it for now as we are short of time and the Government have said that they will deal with it—and there is a long-standing worry about checking overseas workers.
	In recent years, there has been a large increase in the number of overseas workers in the care and education sectors, but there is clearly a concern about getting access to the records of those potential employees. I would welcome the Minister's thoughts on how that issue will be resolved by the Government.
	The Bill is long overdue, but I hope that it will pass speedily through the House with all-party agreement and support, once the concerns raised in the debate have been addressed.

Tim Loughton: We have had rather a good and well-informed debate, but before I get into my winding-up speech, may I make two points?
	First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) on her debut in responding for the Opposition to the introduction of new legislation. Secondly, I anticipate the contribution of the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda), who is also making his debut in his new role. I offer him my congratulations, and I am sure that we will see much of each other in Committee considering this and other legislation.
	As many hon. Members on both sides of the House have mentioned, we all welcome the Bill. Some of us would have welcomed it being introduced rather sooner—sooner after the publication of the Bichard report on 22 June 2004, which is two years ago this Thursday, and sooner after the conviction of Ian Huntley back in December 2003. However, this is important legislation that takes up, as the Minister has said, recommendation 19 of the Bichard report, which is to set up a single, consistent national registration scheme for those working with children and vulnerable adults, with a single protocol and a single set of arrangements for the inclusion of names on two lists.
	It is worth pointing out, as hon. Members have done already, that the Bichard report resulted primarily from the horrendous murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in Soham, Cambridgeshire, at the hands of Ian Huntley. It is right for the Bill to receive cross-party support if it can make a major contribution to the averting of further such outrages. In that context, it should be seen as a fitting and lasting tribute not only to Holly and Jessica but to all the children who have gone before and since, dying or suffering at the hands of paedophiles and child murderers when more could and should have been done to keep them away from children.
	It is our responsibility to ensure that we get the Bill right, not forgetting that the other important part of it deals with vulnerable adults—the elderly and infirm, those with mental illness and those with learning disabilities. Various Members mentioned the close link between those who abuse children and those who abuse vulnerable adults.
	The opening speech from the Back Benches came from the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble), who made the relevant point that it is important to communicate the thrust of the Bill and what is expected of people. As she said, that applies especially to smaller care homes. She was the only speaker to mention Army training establishments, and the need to ensure that new recruits are not subjected to abuse. She rightly said that we must avoid the witch-hunt mentality, while also ensuring that vulnerable people who need and deserve our support receive due care and attention.
	The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon), who is no longer present, spoke from her experience as a former care home inspector. She gave telling and lengthy details of elder abuse that she had seen with her own eyes while inspecting care homes. With the system as it was, she was unable to secure a police prosecution because of the nature of the service users in the home who could have given testimony. We hope that the Bill will remove that deficiency.
	As usual, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner)—I am glancing around the Chamber, but I do not think that he is here either—made some telling points, not least when giving graphic descriptions of what dogs do with their umbilical cords after giving birth to lovely furry puppies, as happened in his household during the past few days. He said that this was a well-intentioned Bill that attempted to draw lines in shades of grey, and made the pertinent point that it should not interfere with families who were trying to do the right thing by their members.
	The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber)—who, I am glad to say, is present—spoke about a subject that is dear to my heart: abuse over the internet. I have been to Scotland Yard, and have seen the paedophile unit and the extraordinarily graphic images that are downloaded and exchanged on the internet. As the hon. Lady rightly said, every one of those images represents the abuse of a child for profit somewhere down the line. The Bill, and other legislation that is needed, must clamp down on that abuse of technology. The hon. Lady also raised the interesting question of whether the vetting provisions should apply to potential councillors and Members of Parliament. I am sure that someone will bring that up in Committee.
	The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) reminded us that abuse also happens in Wales. He too brought previous experience in social services to the fore. Like many others, he asked how thoroughly we could vet workers from overseas. Earlier, the Minister had helpfully told us that they would be subject to the same requirements as any domestic applicant for a post. The problem is, how sure can we be of the veracity of some of the documentation and the authenticity of some of the qualifications that overseas applicants claim to have? How much communication will there be between our police forces and police forces in those people's host countries?
	Let us remember that paedophiles can be the most devious and ingenious of people. These are people who go out of their way to get around the system, and it will be rather easier to do it in this country if they have come from another country. The vast majority of people who come to our country, work in public service and come into contact with children and vulnerable adults are absolutely genuine and have the best intentions; but—just as with some in this country—some do not, and they should be subject to the same rigorous checking as everybody else. We must find new methods of making sure that the system is up to muster.
	The hon. Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran), who is also not present, discussed the issue of online child abuse, which is particularly relevant. I am especially pleased to have been present for the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member forSt. Albans (Anne Main), whom we welcome back after her recent spell away. Her absence has certainly done nothing to diminish her forcefulness, as the points that she made in this debate showed. She spoke from personal experience about the need for the proper vetting of supply teachers, given the laxity in the monitoring of supply-teacher agencies and the apparent failure of the quality mark scheme to address that issue. She also mentioned the subject of sex tourism.
	The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders)—he, too, has disappeared before my winding-up speech; I will take that terribly personally—raised the subject of English language schools and exchange students. Will families who play host to exchange students—that happens a lot in my constituency and in other south-coast constituencies—be subject to the checks mentioned? Is it necessary that they be subject to them? We need to investigate that matter further.
	Typically, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) had done his homework following pronouncements by the former Secretary of State about what will be required of schools. My hon. Friend made the telling point that implementation will be crucial and will only be as good as the people doing the implementing—be they councillors, council officers or other professionals in the field.
	The Opposition will pursue all the points mentioned, and others, constructively, so as to provide positive scrutiny and to ensure that this legislation "does what it says on the tin". However, I should point out that we witnessed some posturing from Government Front Benchers at the beginning of the debate. It would have been useful if all Members had had all the information available to ensure that our debates were as well-informed as possible. An Ofsted report that is very germane to our debate is to be released at one minute past midnight tonight, and such timing must be down to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. Embargoed copies of it were sent not to Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen—neither my party's nor the Liberal Democrats'—they were sent only to the press. However, the Government have been hoist by their own petard, because the press have leaked that report back to us.
	The Government have form in this regard. On Second Reading of the Children and Adoption Bill a few months ago, the Minister for Children and Families mentioned, to further her case, a report that had been released that morning on the internet. That report had not been given to the Opposition or to any other Members of this House, yet it was essential to the matter that we were discussing. Such things must stop. Why is the Ofsted report to be released just after this debate has taken place? Does the Minister not agree that it would have been beneficial to the debate if all of us could have shared in its contents? I do hope that, if any other germane documents come out, they are made available to all members of the Committee as we scrutinise this Bill.

Tim Loughton: It is unfortunate that the Department for Education and Skills is unable to persuade Ofsted of the importance of that report to the Bill. It is extraordinary that it is to be released within three hours of the end of this debate. That is the point that we are making. We have had crocodile tears from Government Members, but they are hoist by their own petard when embargoed copies of reports not made available to Members go to the press instead. It is the press that has leaked them back to Members, who should have had them in the first place.
	I shall put down some benchmarks with respect to our scrutiny of the legislation in Committee. First, will the Bill work to keep paedophiles and abusers—potential and known—away from children and vulnerable adults? Secondly, will it maintain a fair balance between the rights of individuals to go about their business unless and until they are proven to be a risk and the safety of vulnerable children and adults? Essentially, is it workable?
	Thirdly, are the Government truly committed and on track to produce the structures that are essential to delivering such a vast enterprise? Enforcement is particularly relevant as is the workability of the sophisticated computer system required, which several hon. Members have mentioned? I was glad to hear the Minister mention the importance of the people on the ground who will be putting the Bill into effect. We should also bear in mind the Government's track-record on delivering large-scale public service computer programs, as it is not exactly exemplary.
	I read in my local newspaper today that the Sussex police have revealed that the installation of a new computer system is running more than two years behind schedule for the £2.3 million crime and intelligent computer system called Project Nemesis. Time and again, such computer systems leave a lot to be desired, but this one is absolutely essential to the success of the project— [Interruption.] I note that the Secretary of State is shouting from a sedentary position about other computer programs, all of which pale into insignificance beside the £6 billion—or is it £12 billion?—spent on the national health service computer system, which is years behind schedule and is not guaranteed to work. It is the biggest single computer project that has happened to date, but it is not up and running and it has cost all our constituents as taxpayers an awful lot of money. It has not succeeded yet— [Interruption.] Before the Secretary of State gets too excited, he needs to put it all into perspective. Let us not forget that, however proficient a computer system, it will count for nothing unless the quality of data inputted is up to scratch and the resources and professionals in the field are in place to act effectively afterwards.
	Fourthly, will the Bill streamline the current chaos over who is responsible for monitoring which paedophile is where, and establish exactly what they are entitled to do? That problem gave rise to the Government's belated urgency, when the worrying revelations about paedophiles working in positions of trust alongside children hit the headlines at the beginning of the year. It was at that point that the public at large started to hear about the POCA list set up in 2000. I understand that up to the end of last year, some 1,276 persons were listed. People heard about the POVA list set up under the Care Standards Act 2004 and list 99, which has more than 4,000 persons on it. They heard about the sex offenders register, which had grown from 18,513 in 2001 to 28,994 in 2004-05, and about assorted other lists and Criminal Records Bureau check lists and so forth.
	All that gave rise at the beginning of this year to rather more questions than the revelations answered. How could anyone listed on one of those lists get a job working in a school, for example? How is someone's name entered on the list and how is it removed from it? To what extent is information shared between the lists? Who is entitled to access the lists in any case and what responsibilities do they then have for employing or sacking such a person? Given that a CRB check is effectively out of date the day after it has been processed, how is information on the lists kept up to date? What role do Ministers have in monitoring or overruling the decision to include or exclude someone from these lists and what discretion do they have to sanction employment in spite of a listing? At what stage is someone's name added to one of the lists and what safeguards are there against vexatious allegations? What appeal mechanism exists for someone who has been wrongly accused and included on a list?
	To her credit, early this year, the previous Secretary of State got to grips urgently with the problems relating to persons employed in schools, but many of us were worried that the Government were neglecting problems in other sectors of public service, especially and not least in the health service. Our worries were compounded when a Health Minister, Lord Warner, admitted at the Dispatch Box in another place that he had no idea how many people cautioned or convicted of a sexual offence were working in the NHS, let alone those who came into regular contact with children. He seemed to lack any sense of urgency about finding out the possible level of the problem, let alone doing something to sort it out.
	Teachers and teaching assistants are obviously important—that was the main thrust of the complaints made at the beginning of the year—but the problem also involves private tutors, self-employed music teachers, 1.3 million people working in the NHS, doctors, nurses, dentists physiotherapists, social workers, foster carers and so on. We are relying heavily on the Bill to address all the questions and issues that arose at the beginning of the year and more. A lot is riding on it. We need a reliable system that can be more proactive, rather than reactive, to harmful behaviour.
	Some improvements were made to the Bill in another place, but a number of issues are still outstanding; we shall seek to raise them in Committee and they are shared by various children's organisations in particular. Many hon. Members have mentioned those shortcomings. Too much of the detail is left to regulation, and given the length of time that the Government have had to think about the issue since the Bichard report, we want to tie them down to putting more of that detail into the Bill.
	Liberty has raised some serious, legitimate concerns about the scope for automatic inclusion on the barred list and the need to protect the innocent from ill-founded allegations and to respect people's privacy and so on.
	We welcome this belated Bill. We will ask many questions in Committee about exactly what it will mean in practice. We want much more detail and reassurances about the balance of civil liberties against protection and proportionality. We want to instil a culture of vigilance, not to provoke an atmosphere of fear and freelance accusations; but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and the Bill's effectiveness will rely not just on new boards, new computer systems or new rulebooks, but on the people who are responsible for reporting information, gaining access to its findings and intervening and acting where appropriate.
	We will scrutinise the Bill constructively, and I hope that the Government will accept some of the constructive amendments that we want to make. We owe it to all those victims of abuse in the past—young and old—to ensure that the Bill works and is not just another headline.

David Taylor: Does the Minister recall the series of programmes entitled "Britain's Secret Shame", which revealed to many people in this country the extent of elder abuse that exists, sometimes within the family? Opposition Members have made that point. If the Bill is not going to tackle that—and I understand why it might not—might that not strengthen the need for an older people's rights commissioner in England to prosecute and to promote their interests, as we are seeing in Wales and elsewhere?

Stewart Jackson: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on making his ministerial debut tonight. Is not the Achilles heel of the legislation that we are focusing on domestic issues and domestic security checks? As he may know, more than 200,000 people have come from the EU accession countries over the past two years. If he listened to the "File on 4" programme yesterday, he would know that there are no feasible checks being made on those from the EU-8 accession countries. More to the point, the UK Government have exempted themselves from the pilot project to share criminal information about EU subjects. What does he think of that?

Parmjit Dhanda: The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent point, which I will come to later, because it was made by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood mentioned posts in day centres that are not covered. In clause 14, there is a range of areas that are not covered as of now, but are covered by a sunset clause. The idea is to cover those other areas over time. As I said earlier, there are between 7.5 million and9 million people involved in work with children or with vulnerable adults in one way or another, so it will not be possible to legislate to cover all those people in one fell swoop. It will take time.
	The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) made a similar point to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about Liberty and its views on an absolute bar. Last night I read the briefing from Liberty, but I disagree about where we are legally; it is possible to have an automatic bar without the right to make representations. Indeed, the British public would certainly express their opinion to us if, for example, we did not automatically bar child rapists without the right to make representations. Those are just the sort of people whom we want to reach with an auto-bar, without the right to make representations. We are talking about a shorter list of bars than those under list 99, but there will be other provisions—a bar with right to make representations and a discretionary bar in respect of under-18s.
	The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned clarity of terms and the need to flesh some of them out. That happened in Committee in another place, and we shall have further opportunities to do it in Standing Committee. The hon. Lady also mentioned costs. The cost of the scheme is between £16 million and £18 million a year for the first five years, with start-up costs of about £16 million over the first three years.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) made a passionate speech about her constituency, and circumstances that had occurred there. She pointed out that we need an effective communications strategy to explain to people what the Bill will mean to them. I can assure her that we intend to have one. She also said that the Bill should be proportionate, and that we do not want people to be barred for applying sun cream. That is part of the reason why an independent panel of experts will make the decisions, and it is right and proper that such people should be involved.
	My hon. Friend asked whether there would be a single system to cover England and Wales. There will. Furthermore, similar legislation is being planned in Scotland. There will be legislation that mirrors ours in Northern Ireland too, so we shall be able to work closely together across the countries. Like me, she pointed out that over the last 12 months the CRB blocked 25,000 inappropriate employees. That is in stark contrast to the number of headline-grabbing cases of mistaken or duplicate identities, which accounted for only 0.03 per cent., so I thank my hon. Friend for making that point so cogently.
	The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), who is not in the Chamber at the moment, made some interesting points during the debate. I agreed with his point about scrutiny. As he said, the Bill has been well scrutinised and we shall continue to look at it closely. He asked whether under-age sex—for example, between a 14-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy—should result in an auto-bar. I am content that a discretionary approach is best for under-18s—children—rather than a one-size-fits-all structure.
	The hon. Gentleman also mentioned school governors. They will be covered by the scheme, but we will not work retrospectively straight away. We will deal first with new appointments and cases where someone has moved from one post to another.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) raised three issues in a concise but effective speech. She referred to child pornography, and I can confirm that there would be an auto-bar with right to make representations for those convicted of such offences. She asked whether councillors and Members of Parliament should be vetted. The scheme applies to people with day-to-day, regular, frequent involvement with children or vulnerable adults. I am sure that, as has been said, we will return to that in Committee, but it is not entirely germane to the legislation.
	Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran), my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley made a point about chatrooms, which we also intend to take a closer look at in Committee. The matter has been discussed in another place, but there are some issues involved—not least whether we would be giving false security to parents who feel it is okay for their children to go into a chatroom because they think that it is moderated, but who are not aware that it is not really moderated, because the moderator is in another country and hence not under our jurisdiction. Those are all issues for another day, and I am sure that we will discuss them in Committee.

Judy Mallaber: Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss the particular point that I raised about extending the provisions requiring CRB checks of chatroom moderators to those who work with electronic child location services that are used to track children? On the question of child abuse images, will the provisions cover those who have accepted a caution and therefore accepted their responsibility for having downloaded images, or only those who have been taken to court?

Parmjit Dhanda: I want to make a little progress, because I know that I am close to my agreed time.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South—she is experienced in these issues and has tabled a ten-minute Bill on online moderation—asked about CRB checks for governors, and whether there would be a fee attached. I can assure her that there will be no charges for volunteers, and governors come under that heading.
	The hon. Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) talked about agency staff. I can assure her that agency staff are covered by the Bill and that an agency will be breaking the law if it employs a barred person. Those concerned are subject to the same fines—and even imprisonment—as anybody else if they break that law.
	The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) made a point about students from abroad who come to this country. I can confirm that if the carers for those students are frequent carers, they will also be covered by the Bill.
	The hon. Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) made a good point about implementation and I agree that implementation is key. I have already met people from the Home Office and the Department of Health to talk about that.
	The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) made a point in an intervention about overseas staff generally. That is a fair point, and we will return to it in Committee, although the CRB is extending its work and is able to make checks in 21 countries. I accept that in a global world and a global economy, that will become a bigger and bigger issue. I am happy to revisit the matter in Committee.
	The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made a pertinent point at the beginning of his contribution, when he mentioned Holly and Jessica and the importance of making this a Bill that will ensure that circumstances such as those in Soham can—we hope—never occur again. We all share that hope and aspiration, which is why I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friends in the other place, and also to members of the Opposition, who have done a good job in refining the Bill. There have been some concessions along the way. We are in a much stronger position now. The Bill is good and effective, and I look forward to working with Members from both sides of the House to help to ensure that it becomes an Act. I commend the Bill to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Philip Hollobone: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate, to which I am listening with huge interest. He rightly states that half of Scotland's electricity comes from nuclear plant. We are all aware of the increasing importance of carbon neutral generation. If nuclear plants were phased out, and without new nuclear build, how would Scotland replace that carbon neutral generation with alternative carbon neutral generation?

John Robertson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I understand where his error comes from. Scotland contributes to the national grid and is a supplier, not a receiver. In effect, we could close two power stations in Scotland and still meet today's output. But as with other nuclear power stations—Torness and Hunterston—that were decommissioned, their output would have to be replaced. The figures that we have at present do not take into consideration the 1 per cent. increase that is expected in electricity needs for the country in each successive year. We would have a problem in Scotland if no nuclear build went ahead, as will probably happen.
	If, God help us all, we ended up with a completely independent country, the Government would have to decide whether they should build nuclear power stations. Thankfully, I know that people in Scotland are not that stupid. It is likely that we will continue on our current path.
	Nuclear waste management has been an issue since the first reactor was commissioned in England in 1956. At the end of 2005 there were 443 nuclear power plants in operation throughout the world. There were 103 in the United States alone, with another 25 under construction in Japan, India, South Korea, China and Finland. Environmental groups, whose views are often reflected in media reports, state that the majority of the public are against the idea of new build. I believe that the jury is still out on public opinion and that once the issues are in the public domain the vast majority will recognise the benefits in security of supply and a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. That is essential if we are to meet our environmental obligations.
	The fact still remains that even if those who are entirely against nuclear power were successful in preventing new nuclear build, the disposal of nuclear waste will remain an issue facing not only the United Kingdom, including Scotland, but each of the 32 countries currently using nuclear energy to enhance their energy portfolio. The establishment of CoRWM by this Government was a necessary decision, even if it was a difficult one. It has created an opportunity for the most comprehensive and wide-ranging public debate on possible solutions for the disposal of our existing nuclear waste legacy.
	The Government acted, and should be congratulated on acting where successive Governments failed, to seek a solution to the nuclear energy legacy. From as far back as 1976 the royal commission on environmental pollution advised against the expansion of nuclear power until a safe method was found to contain radioactive waste, but nothing was done. With the establishment of Nirex in the 1980s, it was hoped that a solution could be found for radioactive waste disposal. To its credit, it began examining the best method for disposal and was involved in substantial research into various options, including shallow disposal methods. Unfortunately it did not manage to involve the public in an open and transparent debate. This failure led to widespread opposition and a change of course in 1987 led to Nirex investigating the solution of a deep repository for all types of low level and intermediate level waste. Its investigation was extremely comprehensive, with more than 500 potential sites being considered for their suitability for the disposal of low level and intermediate level waste. Those are the sites to which the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) referred.
	In June 2005, Friends of the Earth issued a press release, "Secret N-Waste Dump Sites Revealed", which said that 537 locations throughout Britain had been identified as potential sites for disposing of the UK's radioactive waste, but it failed to mention that those sites were considered for the disposal of low level and intermediate level waste. It failed to mention, too, that the investigation was completed in 1991, and that the only area selected by Nirex to develop an underground rock laboratory to ascertain site suitability was near Sellafield. After planning permission was refused, that application was the subject of a public inquiry, after which the application was rejected.
	That is typical of the way in which the debate has been handled in the past. It is time to tackle the scare stories, myths and misinformation head-on. I urge the Government to ensure that the debate on nuclear energy and the disposal of waste is conducted in an open, transparent and factual manner. I am confident that if the facts on climate change, security of supply and the reduction of CO2 emissions are made clear to the public they will support our policies on nuclear energy and nuclear waste disposal. It is of fundamental importance that we inform the general public of why the UK may support the replacement of existing nuclear power plants, but that information should be based on fact, not the misinformation in two recent Friends of the Earth press releases.
	Friends of the Earth tried to make a story out of nothing in another press release to further its opposition to nuclear power, just as the hon. Member for Moray did earlier. The fact that 537 sites had been investigated did not mean they were suitable for the disposal of nuclear waste, but Friends of the Earth did not let the truth get in the way of a good scare story. It warned that many sites could be considered in future. It arrived at that conclusion because, when Nirex was asked whether the geology had changed, the answer was "no". Friends of the Earth made the logical deduction that, as geological change had not occurred, those sites could be considered in future. It had forgotten that the issue was first considered in 1991, when all the sites were rejected, and only one was the subject of an application. Ministers denied the argument advanced by Friends of the Earth, but that was irrelevant to the organisation. It had decided that it would make a good story in support of its opposition to nuclear power. The media swallowed that story hook, line and sinker.
	In that press release, Friends of the Earth claimed to support action to achieve the safe, long-term management of existing radioactive waste but, amazingly, it did not indicate what method it supported. I doubt whether it would support anything. Instead, it offers rhetoric, with little regard to the energy needs of the people of this country. What can we do with existing nuclear waste, and when will Friends of the Earth provide the solution that it allegedly supports? Doing nothing is not an option, so how does Friends of the Earth suggest we deal with our nuclear legacy? What solutions does it support and what is its policy on a long-term solution to nuclear waste? Can my hon. Friend the Minister assure the House that Friends of the Earth and its cohorts will not delay the planning permission required to meet the needs of the nation?
	In another press release, dated 27 April 2006, Friends of the Earth call for urgent action to safeguard Britain's highly dangerous nuclear waste. They suggest that, in the short term, that must mean secure interim storage, but they fail to indicate where and what type of storage facility that would be. Without a proper constructive proposal, they claim that this is a better long-term solution than dumping the waste deep underground, where they claim experts have warned that the waste will leak from the containers. Is the Minister aware of experts claiming that nuclear waste will leak from containers if we adopt deep geological disposal? If so, how could any responsible Government take such a decision? Or is this another attempt to mislead and misinform? I look forward to my hon. Friend's response.
	Let me give the Minister another gem. In the same press release, Friends of the Earth claim that nuclear power is inherently dirty and dangerous, and that the solution to Britain's nuclear waste problems must involve rejecting calls for new nuclear power stations. There we have it—let us reject nuclear power, and the waste disappears. How on earth can any responsible body come to such a conclusion?
	As we have some extra time tonight, there are some other myths that I draw to the Minister's attention. Myth No. 1: nuclear energy is expensive. It is, in fact, one of the least expensive energy sources. In 2004, the average cost of producing nuclear energy in the United States was less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, comparable with coal and hydroelectric power. Advances in technology will bring the cost down further.
	Myth No. 2: nuclear waste will be dangerous for thousands of years. Within 40 years, used fuel has less than one thousandth of the radioactivity that it had when it was removed from the reactor. It is incorrect to call it waste, because 96 per cent. of the potential energy is still contained in the used fuel after the first cycle. Now that the United States has removed the ban on recycling used fuel, it will possible to use that energy and to reduce greatly the amount of waste that needs treatment and disposal. Last month, Japan joined France, Britain and Russia in the nuclear fuel recycling business. The United States, I believe, will not be far behind.
	Myth No. 3: nuclear reactors are vulnerable to terrorist attack. The 6 ft-thick reinforced concrete containment vessel protects the contents from the outside, as well as from the inside. Even if a jumbo jet crashed into a reactor and breached containment, the reactor would not explode. There are many types of facilities that are far more vulnerable, including liquefied natural gas plants, chemical plants and, dare I say it, numerous political targets.
	British Nuclear Fuels Ltd took the unprecedented decision to issue a full statement regarding a report that predicted very serious consequences for the public if the high level waste tanks at Sellafield were to be targeted by hijacked aircraft. None of the authors of the report has access to the current engineering and construction information that is necessary to undertake a credible study of the likely consequences. For that reason, BNFL considers that the conclusions are unsubstantiated, entirely speculative and significantly exaggerate the consequences—nothing new there.
	It is accepted that nuclear fuel can be diverted to make nuclear weapons. This is the most serious issue associated with nuclear energy and the most difficult to address, as the example of Iran shows, but just because nuclear technology can be put to evil purposes, that is not an argument for banning its use. Over the past 20 years, one of the simplest tools, the machete, has been used to kill more than a million people in Africa, far more than were killed in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings combined. What are car bombs made of? Diesel oil, fertiliser and cars. If we banned everything that can be used to kill people, we would never have harnessed fire.
	Imagine if the ratio of coal to nuclear were reversed, so that only 20 per cent. of our electricity was generated from coal and 60 per cent. from nuclear. That would go a long way towards cleaning the air and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Every responsible environmentalist should support a move in that direction.
	A public debate about radioactive waste is important. Public confidence will not be restored unless there is confidence in the institution that manages the consultation and debate and develops policy. New institutions are required that have independence, authority, transparency and accountability. They should be formed as soon as possible, and there is no need to wait until the consultation process is completed in 2007.
	Such institutions would be required to manage a three-step process. First, they would need to run a public consultation to elicit the values, priorities and wishes of the electorate. Secondly, they would need to conduct detailed analysis and obtain technical advice to formulate waste disposal policy. Thirdly, they would need to implement that policy. A waste management commission should be created to undertake the first two roles. A separate waste management executive will be required to undertake the third role, and its relationship with the liabilities management authority and the waste management commission will need to be clearly defined.
	International involvement, especially through the European Union, is an essential element of future research on the problems of radioactive waste. Although this debate concerns Scotland and the UK,I recommend that relations with European and other international collaborators, including the USA, should be explored in parallel with the present consultations.
	With the events of 11 September in mind, we must advocate an urgent safety review, which should take into account the possibility of extreme terrorist intervention. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce emissions while continuing to satisfy the growing demand for power, and these days it can do it safely.
	The issue of nuclear waste should be subject to significant discussion and consultation independent from any new build that may occur. Nuclear waste exists today, and it will exist in the future. Even if no new nuclear power stations were commissioned, and even if the existing nuclear power stations closed tomorrow, we would still have to deal with nuclear waste in the years ahead. In my view, nuclear power is the safest and most regulated energy source in the UK, and it produces no CO2 emissions.
	We have the highest safety standards in the UK, and we should ensure that every country shares them—Chernobyl would not have happened if our standards had been applied. Let us tell the world how safe our industry is and dispel the myths constantly perpetrated by those who wear blinkers and who refuse to acknowledge the way forward.
	I shall now discuss a nuclear success story, Three Mile Island. The concrete structure did exactly what it was designed to do—it prevented radiation from escaping into the environment. Although the reactor itself was crippled, there was neither injury nor death among the nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States.
	In a press release, Friends of the Earth states that security specialists have warned the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management that
	"it is our unanimous opinion that greater attention should be given to the current management of radioactive waste held within the UK, in the context of its vulnerability to potential terrorist attack. We are not aware of any UK Government programme that is addressing this issue with adequate detail or priority, and consider it unacceptable for some vulnerable waste forms, such as spent fuel, to remain in their current condition and mode of storage."
	I would be grateful if the Minister were to respond to these points.
	In previous contributions, I have often referred to Professor James Lovelock. This evening, I want to introduce a new name into this important debate, because an article by Patrick Moore in the energy review May 2006 Holyrood supplement has caught my attention. Many, especially the environmentalists among us, will have heard of Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace. In a very forthright article, he makes many points with which I agree. Many people in the past, himself and myself included, felt that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust. While he does not want to underestimate the very real dangers of nuclear technology in the hands of rogue states, he feels that we cannot simply ban every technology that is dangerous. That was the all-or-nothing mentality at the height of the cold war, when anything nuclear seemed to spell doom for humanity and the environment. After 30 years, his view has changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views too.
	It is refreshing to see that many distinguished individuals with such impeccable green credentials recognise the need for honesty and are urging their compatriots to recognise the realities that this planet now faces. Being an eternal optimist, as everyone knows, I live in hope that environmentalists such as James Lovelock, Stewart Brand, Bishop Hugh Montefiore and Patrick Moore, who have all faced the realities of climate change and come to the same conclusion, may convince those who think that being green means that they must oppose nuclear energy to see the error of their ways or to open their eyes and accept that nuclear energy can and should play a major role in protecting the earth's climate.
	The danger that the planet faces not only in Scotland and the UK, but internationally, is highlighted when we examine the damage that burning fossil fuel creates. For example, 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 per cent. of US emissions and nearly 10 per cent. of global emissions of CO2—the gas primarily responsible for climate change. Today, 103 nuclear reactors are quietly delivering20 per cent. of America's electricity. Eighty per cent. of people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them, and that does not include the nuclear workers. I believe that the community support is similar within areas of the UK.
	Of course, wind and solar power, which are intermittent and unpredictable, have a role to play, but they cannot replace big base-load plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is too volatile to risk building big base-load plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute for coal. It is that simple.
	The 600-plus coal-fired plants in the US emit nearly 2 billion tonnes of CO2 annually—equivalent to the exhaust from about 300 million automobiles. In addition, the Clean Air Council reports that coal plants are responsible for 64 per cent. of sulphur dioxide emissions, 26 per cent. of nitrous oxides, and 33 per cent. of mercury emissions. Those pollutants are eroding the health of our environment by producing acid rain, smog, respiratory illness and mercury contamination. That is not to say that we should not invest in research and development into clean coal technology. In fact, I believe that that is a must for the Government, and I would encourage more in-depthR and D into all energy supplies.
	Let me conclude by urging the Minister to implement the proposals from CoRWM, taking in to account all the caveats. Urgency in implementing a solution to the nuclear waste legacy is vital. Reprocessing may need to be reconsidered, along with identification of deep geological disposal sites. I have explained why I believe that waste should be taken separately from new build, which, if it happens, will add only about 10 per cent. to the waste that we already have over the next 60 years. However, we have that waste and we must do something about it.
	I reiterate a few of my questions. What can be done with existing nuclear waste? Are the Government aware of the views of experts who claim that nuclear waste will leak from containers if we adopt deep geological disposal? If so, what will they do about it? I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to answer those questions and the others that I asked. I hope that I have been positive in suggesting some solutions.

David Cairns: My name is John David Cairns—how clever of you to know that, Mr. Speaker. It is obviously how one gets to become Speaker. That is enough crawling for now—I shall press on with my speech.  [Interruption.] I am sure I can get more in, including a reference to an excellent visit that I made to your constituency on Friday, Mr. Speaker.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) on securing an important debate. Given the energy review next month and the final recommendation and report by the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, we shall hear much more about it in the approaching weeks and months.
	My hon. Friend has a reputation as an expert on the issue and a considerable background in the subject. He seldom misses an opportunity to discuss issues around the civil use of nuclear technology. Indeed, I recently turned on my television, bleary eyed on Sunday morning, only to see him on the "Heaven & Earth" show, which I had hitherto assumed was reserved for bishops. However, my hon. Friend was on the programme, showing his expertise on the subject of our debate. I understand that it received more e-mails on the topic that he introduced than on the travails of the Church of England, which was the other topic that day. He is an acknowledged expert and he speaks with great authority.
	I want to try to tackle directly the questions that my hon. Friend asks in the context of where we are now on managing radioactive waste safely, the CoRWM report and the forthcoming energy review. It is important to deal with the title of the debate, which is about the effect of UK Government policy on nuclear waste management in Scotland.
	Policy responsibility is clearly devolved to the Scottish Parliament and Executive, but it is also characterised by widespread joint working between Whitehall Departments and their counterparts in the various devolved Administrations as well as bodies such as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Technical expertise in Government on handling nuclear waste is shared across several Administrations but joint involvement and the Administrations working together go much further than that.
	Joint working is currently focused on the managing radioactive waste safely programme, which updates policy on radioactive waste in the United Kingdom. The title of the programme goes some way towards addressing the first of my hon. Friend's questions. Managing radioactive waste centrally is the No. 1 priority and when Ministers make decisions on such matters, safety will be the paramount consideration. Those who question the safety of some methods of disposal such as those that my hon. Friend mentioned have every right to make their case, but Ministers will be guided by the science and putting safety first.
	The central focus of the managing radioactive waste safely programme has been the long-term management of the long-lived wastes, which display higher levels of radioactivity. That led to the joint decision by UK and devolved Administration Ministers in 2002 to establish CoRWM. There is also joint oversight of the activities of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and joint participation in the current review of handling low level waste.
	The long-term management policy for higher activity wastes will be decided by the UK Government and the devolved Administrations in the light CoRWM's final recommendations. As we have not yet received them and have only the interim report, it is difficult for me to comment on the specific recommendations that might emerge from that. The Government will respond once CoRWM has produced its final report, which is expected in July.
	As I have said, responsibility for nuclear waste in Scotland is devolved. However, the picture is of considerable joint working with the Scottish Executive on the part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Trade and Industry as the main Whitehall policy Departments involved. My hon. Friend has recognised the significance of such co-operation in selecting his topic for debate and in his speech this evening.
	A joint approach involves concerns and priorities from all sides being considered together in the search for a common approach that meets the needs of all parts of the country. This is not a question of the Government imposing a view on how the Scottish Executive should use their devolved powers; it is about working with each other to address the shared problem of what to do about nuclear waste.
	 It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
	 Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. — [Mr. Heppell.]

David Cairns: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I assume that I should now carry on as normal. That is the first time that that has ever happened to me. It provided a bit of excitement to jazz up my speech.
	As I was saying before I was so pleasantly interrupted, this is not about one part of the Administration foisting a view on another part. It is about the acknowledgement that we face a common challenge, and that we need to work together. To those of us who believe in devolution, this sort of joint working demonstrates how we can benefit from the diversity within the United Kingdom by making the effort needed to reach common understanding.

David Cairns: My hon. Friend is encouraging me to speculate not only on what the outcome of the CoRWM report will be and the Scottish Executive's response to that, but on what the implications will be for us of the Scottish Executive's response to a report that has not yet been published. He will forgive me if I do not go down that road, although there is clear recognition—I want to come on to this in a moment—by the First Minister that there is a problem in Scotland of dealing with this waste.
	The First Minister is showing leadership in tackling the issue and not running away from it, like those who would simply wish the waste away. Let us get ourselves a magic wand and wish it all away. Let us wish away the waste that will come from decommissioning Hunterston B and Torness. Let us wish away the waste from Dounreay and Chapel Cross. That luxury is affordable to those who are in opposition and never have to take such decisions, but those in government, whether in the Scottish Executive or here, have to take such decisions. We recognise that we cannot simply wish away the radioactive waste.
	We all have to deal with the radioactive waste issue. Waste from various sources already exists and we need to ensure that we manage it appropriately. Considerable quantities of existing waste in Scotland come from the decommissioning of nuclear power plants, which have been an important part of Scottish industry and served Scottish electricity users well over several decades. There will be substantially larger volumes of such waste in Scotland as decommissioning proceeds and in time takes in the stations at Hunterston B and Torness, which are still operating.
	A recent study estimated that the volume of intermediate and low level radioactive waste in Scotland will grow from about 14,000 cu m in 2004 to 54,000 cu m by 2014, and continue to grow thereafter as Hunterston B and Torness move into decommissioning.
	There is this legacy of waste in Scotland, but it is a devolved responsibility as to how it should be handled in the long-term. It will have to be addressed by the Administration in Edinburgh, but there have been important considerations in the Scottish Executive in agreeing, first, with UK Ministers to set up CoRWM and continuing co-operation, ongoing, through the managing radioactive waste safely programme.
	We are at the stage where CoRWM is about to finalise its recommendations, and all involved will need to consider how they wish to respond. Some critics appear to consider devolved responsibility in this area is simply the power to keep saying no. That is not how responsible government works. There is a problem about what to do about legacy waste in Scotland—it is a devolved problem—and the devolved Administration will have to address it. However, the First Minister is well aware of the position. He said in the Scottish Parliament on 18 May:
	"I believe strongly that nuclear waste has an impact not just on people today but on future generations. It is an issue that we in Scotland need to address because we have to be part of the solution, not just part of the problem... we have to acknowledge that we in Scotland have a duty to deal with that issue in order to protect future generations".
	That is a sensible approach which we would expect from the First Minister. It is for everyone in the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Executive to continue to work jointly in responding to CoRWM, and to work in other ways towards agreement on a shared approach to the handling of all types of radioactive waste from all parts of Britain.
	My hon. Friend asked a couple of other questions. He spoke about the planning regime, which is also devolved in Scotland. The energy review, however, will consider the planning regime not in the context of nuclear new build, but as it applies to all forms of electricity generation. We are aware that, not just in Scotland but particularly in Scotland, some of the most controversial aspects of the planning regime revolve around onshore wind generation. Every application for onshore wind generation itself generates, in the first instance, enormous amounts of public concern and many objections. Incidentally, the Opposition parties here that demand more and more forms of renewables are often the same parties that object to every planning application and permission in the country.
	My hon. Friend asked about the vulnerability of nuclear installations in an age of global terrorism. That is an important and serious question, and one that needs to be addressed now rather than in the context of nuclear new build. Any prospect of nuclear new build is still some years away, and we are dealing with the threat of global terrorism today. My hon. Friend would not expect me to go into detail about the security arrangements to ensure that our nuclear installations are protected, but they are in place. They have been thoroughly reviewed since 11 September, and are the subject of continuing reviews. There have been no terrorist incidents at our nuclear installations so far, but my hon. Friend is right to keep us abreast of the need to ensure their safety when there is an ongoing terrorist threat.
	As I said at the outset, we are in a holding position. We await the final outcome of the energy review, which is expected some time next month, and we await what will be said about how we are to provide the energy that our country needs without wrecking the planet in the process. "How do we do that?" is a simple question; answering it is more complex, but that is the task with which the energy review must grapple. We also await the final report from CoRWM, which is dealing with the legacy of waste from which we simply cannot run away. We have to deal with it, because it is here and no amount of wishful thinking will dispose of it. We can deal with it only by making decisions based on the science and the recommendations of CoRWM. It is for CoRWM to make the recommendations and, ultimately, it will be for Ministers to make the decisions.
	Unfortunately, we have already heard a recitation of an old list of sites from a survey carried out many years ago. We need a public debate on the siting of any deep geological disposition, if that is the recommendation of CoRWM and if it is what Ministers decide. There is no secret list of sites, and there is no plan to dump nuclear waste in Scotland or anywhere else. The whole CoRWM process has been about a grown-up consideration of this issue, based on the science and moving forward from CoRWM into the months— and, indeed, years—ahead, because many of these decisions will not be implemented for many years to come. So we have the time to take forward this issue in a considered manner that is rooted in the science and free from the hysteria that often marks this debate, but on the very clear understanding that it is not an issue that we can duck. We need to deal with it, irrespective of the outcome of the energy review and of the future of nuclear power in this country.
	I finish by once again congratulating my hon. Friend on continuing to raise these important issues. His speech this evening is an extremely weighty and important contribution to a very significant debate, to which we will doubtless return in the months ahead.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at fifteen minutes pastTen o'clock.